Backstage

Dramatic Irony: What It Is and How to Use It

While dramatic irony entails a contrast between what an audience knows and what characters know, verbal irony is a contrast between words and their meaning, and situational irony is a contrast between ...
Backstage

Verbal Irony: the Art of Saying One Thing and Meaning Another

Although verbal irony is one of the most common types used in casual conversation and storytelling, it can be easy to mix it up with other types of irony. Understanding how it differs can be helpful ...
Salon

The irony of how we use the word “irony”

Adapted from "Irony and Sarcasm" by Roger Kreuz (MIT Press, 2020). Reprinted with permission from MIT Press. In February 1996, Alanis Morissette released the fourth single from “Jagged Little Pill,” ...
The Punch Newspapers

Uses of irony: Learning from Soyinka’s latest example

Like simile, metaphor, personification and hyperbole, irony is a very useful figure of speech. Writers and other creative workers regularly make use of it, including comedians. It can, however, also ...
The Guardian

The final irony

Taking its name from the Greek eironeia (dissimulation), irony consists of purporting a meaning of an utterance or a situation that is different, often opposite, to the literal one. Maike Oergel, ...
The Guardian

Why does the rumour persist that Americans have no sense of irony? Has nobody read The Onion? Or watched The Simpsons? Also, can anyone explain the difference between irony and ...

1. If the answer is we're just being ironic when we say you have no sense of irony then where does that leave you, matey boy? 2. Sarcasm is a speciific form of irony. Mark , Bristol UK Well, at least ...