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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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Irony
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INFOTEXT
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1992-09-02
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A literary technique that achieves the effect
of `saying one thing and meaning another',
through the use of humour or mild sarcasm. It
can be traced through all periods of English
literature, from the good-humoured and subtle
irony of Chaucer to the 20th-century writer's
method for dealing with nihilism and despair,
as in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. The
Greek philosopher Plato used irony in his
dialogues, in which Socrates elicits truth
through a pretence of naivety. Sophocles' use
of dramatic irony also has a high
seriousness, as in Oedipus Rex, where Oedipus
prays for the discovery and punishment of the
city's polluter, little knowing that it is
himself. Eighteenth-century scepticism
provided a natural environment for irony,
with Swift using the device as a powerful
weapon in Gulliver's Travels and elsewhere.