Irony

Irony is derived from Latin 'ironia' which comes from Greek 'eironeia' meaning feigned ignorance. The greek comic character Eiron, a clever underdog who by his wit repeatedly triumphs over the boastful character Alazon. The Socratic irony of the Platonic dialogues derives from this comic origin. Feigning ignorance and humility, Socrates goes about asking silly and obvious questions of all sorts of people on all sorts of subjects only to expose their ignorance. There are two example of irony- verbal and dramatic. Verbal irony is the intentional irony in speech, the speaker saying one thing to mean its reverse using innocent language with an offensive motive. The classic example of this kind of irony is Antony's repeated assertion in Julius Caesar that 'Brutus is an honourable man'. Verbal irony arises from a sophisticated or resigned awareness of contrast between what is and what ought to be and expresses a controlled pathos without sentimentality.