Irony in modern English fiction

From Cicero and Quintilian's day to our own, the word «irony» has come to mean far more than just «saying one thing and meaning another». Its field of reference has expanded to include wit, humour, and the comic, as well as what we now call dramatic and tragic irony, situational irony, and the irony of fate. And then there is Socratic irony - with its broad range of associations - plus the influential reflexive mode labelled Romantic Irony . Actuality of the research consists in the following: in the twentieth century, in some critics' views, irony has even come to stand for all that is complex and thus positive about art itself.
A multitude of works have been written on the subject of irony and rightly so, since we would be hard pressed to find an author who does not make use of this device. D.C. Muecke presents a few examples from the literary canon, from Homer to Brecht as well as from all time periods cultures between them. He implies that irony and «great literature» are inextricably related. To define the term, however, seems an almost impossible task. Muecke lists fifteen different types of irony that, as a whole, defy a unified and precise definition. The most common type of irony in the literary realm is probably verbal irony. Though generally maintained that verbal irony tends to make a statement but imply its opposite, Japp also points out that the hidden text may simply signify something different from the literal (and superficial) one, rather than necessarily its opposite. The ironist can also be better understood by being contrasted with the liar. The latter intends only the literal text and states the opposite of what he knows. The former, on the other hand, implies a contradiction to what he says. When we refer to entire literary works as ironic, we are, however, no longer in the realm of verbal but rather literary irony. This type of irony is far more complex, because the literary device here is more dependent on interpreation.
The theme of...

Nowadays, most critics agree that the old concept of irony as «saying one thing and meaning another» is no longer a comprehensive or accurate description of multifarious and complex techniques that writers use to create irony. On the other hand, irony is not something that can be recognized by a fixed set of linguistic or stylistic features. There is no recognizable ironic tone or style. Irony depends on context. Just as there are no words or expressions which are humorous but by reason of their semantic or syntactic use in a context and which will have to be defined «extrinsically» by their contextual linkages and semantic relationships.
The present paper discusses the technique of irony used in Joyce’s «A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man». This technique is employed in Joyce's novels which can help readers make full understanding of his works and his thoughts. Here in the paper, we can see Joyce's paradoxical attitude towards life and his ironic vision are embodied in the technique.
Irony, as a literary device, is at least as old as the Hellenistic rhetoricians. Romantic irony is often referred to as traditional irony in writings, which denotes a discrepancy between appearance and an assumed reality, and shares the element of duality with other types of irony. In his Rhetoric, Aristotle uses duality to describe irony as blame-by-praise, or praise-by-blame [12, p. 44]. Hence irony can criticize or praise and in Aristotle's Rhetoric on Alexander, he defines irony as saying something but meaning the opposite. However, in daily life, irony is not confined to verbal usage - it can be a general attitude. Though different the definitions of irony are, they share the same feature - duality in terms of incongruence, incompatibility, opposition, etc.
In this work I investigate the nature and significance of romantic irony in James Joyce's «A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man».
«A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man», largely autobiographical, shows the...