On Mon, 14 Jun 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > > In my view nothing Tazendra says is ironic - she speaks and does not > > understand, but no one hearing her fails to understand. It's > > conceivable that in fact Tazendra is much smarter (in some sense) than > > people realize - then it would be ironic that her hearers (say the > > other Musketeers) think she's dumb, but we know otherwise. However, > > everybody is in fact aware that she's not that dumb. This is humor, > > sometimes complex humor, but I don't think it's irony. > > I think that, for example, Sethra Lavode's "That's lucky" is an > example of undeniably ironic talking to Tazendra. Perhaps Sethra's being ironic (I'd say "(gently) mocking"), but it's not an example of irony I think. This would be something like Socratic irony in Fowler's classification I suppose, but not really, esp. because I don't see S caring what the others think. I say call it humor. > > In fact, I can't at this time identify _anything_ in the Paarfiad that's > > ironic. (Except perhaps the fact that Adron destroys the empire in > > attempting to save it - his scenes with Aerich in particular have a > > powerful ironic character.) I'd hazard a guess that Paarfi eschews this > > mode as a historian. > > But not as a romancer. He specifically says (PotD, Ch. 18) that his > treatment of Tazendra is in the ironic mode. I'd say his treatment > of Erik qualifies too. Again I think Paarfi means "the humorous mode" according to Fowler. It's entirely unclear to me if Dragaera has equivalents to Socrates and Sophocles (the former would probably not have lasted long and the latter arose in what seems to me to be an extremely unusual culture). > Nothing else ironic? I venture to disagree. > > Dramatic irony: The whole Paarfiad is an example of dramatic irony > because we know so much that the characters don't, just as > Sophocles's audience knew what Oedipus was going to find out. It's not exploited as such, though, except as noted above. There's a tragic element in _FHYA_ that arises from our knowledge - in fact the preface sets the tragic tone by reminding us most of the characters are doomed. If I recall, Shakespearean tragedy isn't especially ironic, though the audience knows the story. The characters aren't missing some crucial (obtainable) bit of information - they're lacking prescience. Ok, just thought of a possible counterexample to my argument - the discussions about whether the Cycle has turned are possibly ironic, because it might be the case that neither Tortaalik or Adron is the Cycle-Emperor towards the end of the novel (though the former is the Orb-Emperor) without the Cycle having moved. I at least am too ignorant of what actually happened with the Cycle to easily consider myself more clued in than the speakers in those discussions. (Also note that under the Sethra/Aliera-killed-Tortaalik-and-framed-Mario scenario many things Paarfi writes in _FHYA_ are highly [unintentionally] ironic, i.e., almost all of S/A's dialogues.) > Then there's a higher level of dramatic irony, as Brust sometimes > invites us to feel superior to Paarfi with his House prejudices > and his prolix claims to concision. I don't find Paarfi prejudiced about Houses (but see the long argument about this from a few months back). And I think there's a good chance that Paarfi is in fact concise by his nominal audience's standard. I agree this would be irony given your reading. > Situational irony: Morrolan et al. and Zerika et al. passing > other like cliches in the night might count. This is more slapstick or silent-movie humor in my view since I'm using Fowler's categories. > Verbal irony: Everywhere, as the characters say "do me the honor" > when they mean "insult me", refer to fighting as "play" and > "festivities", and such. This may become so familiar that it > loses its ironic force. I think some of this is probably actually straightforward - the characters in fact consider duelling a form of play. Otherwise I'd call this "sarcasm" or "sardonicism" (except that the latter noun is butt-ugly).