Irony
Overview
 
Irony is a rhetorical device
Rhetorical device
In rhetoric, a rhetorical device or resource of language is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading him or her towards considering a topic from a different perspective. While rhetorical devices may be used to evoke an...

, literary technique
Literary technique
A literary technique is any element or the entirety of elements a writer intentionally uses in the structure of their work...

, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions. There is presently no accepted method for textually indicating irony, though an irony (punctuation) mark has been proposed.

Ironic statements (verbal irony) typically imply a meaning in opposition to their literal meaning. A situation is often said to be ironic (situational irony) if the actions taken have an effect exactly opposite from what was intended.
Quotations

'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low: So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,No more through rolling clouds to soar again,View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.

Lord Byron|George Gordon, Lord Byron, in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers : A Satire (1809)

Time changes all things and cultivates even in herself an appreciation of irony.

James Branch Cabell

Ironic philosophies produce passionate works.

Albert Camus

Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument.

Rufus Choate, as quoted in A Treasury of Great American Quotations : Our Country's Life & History in the Thoughts of its Men and Women (1964) by Charles Hurd

When irony first makes itself known in a young man's life, it can be like his first experience of getting drunk; he has met with a powerful thing which he does not know how to handle.

Robertson Davies, in The Cunning Man|The Cunning Man (1994)

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.

Anatole France, as quoted in Satanic Satire in the Modern Novel (1925) by Sidney Stephen Greenleaf, p. 25

Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic — if it is pulled out I shall die.

Søren Kierkegaard, Journal entry (1847)

Irony is the birth-pangs of the objective mind (based upon the misrelationship, discovered by the I, between existence and the idea of existence). Humor is the birth-pangs of the absolute mind (based upon the misrelationship, discovered by the I, between the I and the idea of the I.

Søren Kierkegaard, Journals, (III B 19)

 
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