Comments on: Irony alerts in the 14th and 21st centuries

By: morvern callar

morvern callar — Sat, 13 Mar 2004 16:24:38 +0000

Bob: I think I just confused it with the thousand variations of “sarcasm is the last refuge of the…” (weak-minded, incompetent, pedant, moralist, etc.). I know I’ve heard that a lot, but never with “irony” in place of sarcasm…

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 22:43:43 +0000

“Bob: Irony is the last refuge of the moralist I thought that was sarcasm, not irony?” It is a quote from Kierkeggaard, or half a quote. The second half goes something like: “moralist, for he has no way of expressing…” I tried googling, and looking in the indices of my books, but I can’t remember and can’t find the passage. The first half, as stated is my favorite K quote, and one of my favorite all-time quotes. Take a long time to explain

By: Morvern Callar

Morvern Callar — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 22:14:15 +0000

John C. Halasz, that is so much clearer now. Seriously. Bob: Irony is the last refuge of the moralist I thought that was sarcasm, not irony?

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 01:19:35 +0000

“And there were no typos that time.” “the despair of sheer disbelief is not without its merit.” Certainly a willful typo in there somewhere.” This was just a stupid allusion to “Sickness Unto Death”, meant to be ironic “Nor is that matter of irony necessarily an either/or proposition.” But perhaps you caught it afterall :) I liked the piece

By: john c. halasz

john c. halasz — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 21:58:20 +0000

Sorry, I thought I was being clear enough. I was contesting the idea that irony was not “serious”, as in the Gricean maxims. Nor is “seriousness” necessarily a useful or even identifiable criterion in language. I think seriousness would probably depend on the consequentiality of what is transacted. Like “literal meaning”, “seriousness” as a linguistic criterion is a notion that depends on what it is not, as if the shifting of levels and modal relations in language could be eliminated to get down to its basic form. Nor is that matter of irony necessarily an either/or proposition. And there were no typos that time.

By: Joshua W. Burton

Joshua W. Burton — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 18:15:40 +0000

Motoko — that is a wonderful explanation of irony. Is it your own doing? It’s straight out of Fowler, 1926. http://www.panix.com/~hncl/HectorsJournal/archives/000176.html

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 15:24:18 +0000

“Can anyone translate what John C. Halasz wrote?” Nah. Too much in there. No irony in nihilism, no irony without belief “Irony is the last refuge of the moralist,…” Can anyone finish the above for me? “the despair of sheer disbelief is not without its merit.” Cetainly a willful typo in there somewhere.

By: Natalie Solent

Natalie Solent — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 13:17:30 +0000

Bernard Shaw once suggested the introduction of a new irony-conveying typeface on the model of italics but sloping left, to be called “ironics”. I don’t know if he was being serious or not.

By: Chris Lightfoot

Chris Lightfoot — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 12:30:15 +0000

You can use … if you want to (this probably only works in modern, i.e. post-about-1999, browsers). Personally I think this is an absolutely jolly splendid idea and you should all start using it, though I note that it doesn’t work in MT’s comments….

By: Dave F

Dave F — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 11:02:27 +0000

Right on, matako. The use of such a device would, like the exclamation mark used to signal “humour” by the witless, be a dead giveaway. Emoticons. Scum of the blogiverse.

By: Morvern Callar

Morvern Callar — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:20:41 +0000

Can anyone translate what John C. Halasz wrote? Or was it ironic? Crikey, I feel like a dupe.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:15:41 +0000

Realistically, Quiggin and DDavies don’t need irony tags.

By: nnyhav

nnyhav — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 03:21:32 +0000

We’re all kibologists now. Where’s Chun?

By: john c. halasz

john c. halasz — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 00:55:06 +0000

Seriously now, with respect to the use/mention and force/content distinctions, I don’t know that they are specific enough to pin down the particular matter. And I don’t think that the notion of “seriousness” is quite apropos. Doesn’t irony have to do with the interplay between belief and disbelief and the expression thereof? And in this respect, irony would pertain to the level of discourse itself rather than reality and to the surplus of discourse over reality. That would be why literary fiction almost inevitably tends toward irony. (Though, in the case of the peripety of classical tragedy, it is the seeming force of reality itself that traps and crushes one in one’s belief.) The charge against irony would be the charge of disbelief, of an utter lack of belief. Against the pomo/pop culture hipster crowd this has the ring of truth delivered with blunt force trauma. But there is no necessity in the case, for it could just as well be a matter of discrimination between beliefs. And in the face of conventionalistic authoritarians who want to impose their narrow take upon “reality” and what such conventionalism is wont to bring about, the despair of sheer disbelief is not without its merit.

By: john c. halasz

john c. halasz — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 00:11:08 +0000

“Of course, the reception of irony depends on knowing what the speaker will and will not mean seriously- meaning that in an ironic enough context communication is absolutely impossible!” Didn’t Kafka once write something about that?