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54-595: The three speeches of Bildad are contained in Job ;8, Job 18 and Job 25. In substance, Bildad largely echos what Eliphaz the Temanite had claimed. Bildad's speech is charged with somewhat increased vehemence, compared to Eliphaz who spoke first, because Bildad found Job's words too angry and impious. He was the first of Job's friends to attribute Job's calamity to actual wickedness; however, he does so indirectly, by accusing Job's children (who were destroyed in

108-436: A "wonderful, eternal alternation between enthusiasm and irony", between "creation and destruction", an "eternal oscillation between self-expansion and self-limitation of thought", a "reciprocal play ( Wechselspiel ) between the infinite and the finite", it is "the pulse and alternation between universality and individuality"—no matter how the contrasting pairs may be articulated. In this way, according to Schlegel, irony captures

162-495: A concept of irony that is not a mere "artistic playfulness", but a "conscious form of literary creation", typically involving the "consistent alternation of affirmation and negation". No longer just a rhetorical device, on their conception, it refers to an entire metaphysical stance on the world. It is commonplace to begin a study of irony with the acknowledgement that the term quite simply eludes any single definition. Philosopher Richard J. Bernstein opens his Ironic Life with

216-518: A new sense of "an intended simulation which the audience or hearer was meant to recognise". More simply put, it came to acquire the general definition, "the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect". Until the Renaissance , the Latin ironia was considered a part of rhetoric, usually a species of allegory , along

270-703: A personal revelation which he received through a dream (Job 4:12-16): "an elusive word [stealed] past, quiet like a whisper ", and after a silence he heard a voice saying: Can mankind be just before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? He puts no trust even in His servants; And against His angels He charges error. How much more those who dwell in houses of clay". Eliphaz feels empowered to confront Job because of his dream. Crenshaw notes that he missed "the irony of this reference to God's lack of trust in his servants". Some authors consider that Job's words in Job 9:2 are

324-493: A response to this "revelation" of Eliphaz: In truth I know that this is so; but how can a man be in the right before God? If one wished to dispute with Him, he could not answer Him once in a thousand times. Albert Barnes refers to one of the Rosenmüllers as taking this approach. However, the words are different and form part of Job's reply to Bildad , the second friend: Barnes notes that "it seems more probable that it

378-431: A rhetorical perspective means to consider it as an act of communication. In A Rhetoric of Irony , Wayne C. Booth seeks to answer the question of "how we manage to share ironies and why we so often do not". Because irony involves expressing something in a way contrary to literal meaning, it always involves a kind of "translation" on the part of the audience. Booth identifies three principal kinds of agreement upon which

432-752: A rhetorically complex phenomenon. Admired by some and feared by others, it has the power to tighten social bonds, but also to exacerbate divisions. How best to organize irony into distinct types is almost as controversial as how best to define it. There have been many proposals, generally relying on the same cluster of types; still, there is little agreement as to how to organize the types and what if any hierarchical arrangements might exist. Nevertheless, academic reference volumes standardly include at least all four of verbal irony , dramatic irony , cosmic irony , and Romantic irony as major types. The latter three types are sometimes contrasted with verbal irony as forms of situational irony , that is, irony in which there

486-411: A universal truth about the human situation. Even Booth, whose interest is expressly rhetorical, notes that the word "irony" tends to attach to "a type of character — Aristophanes' foxy eirons , Plato's disconcerting Socrates — rather than to any one device". In these contexts, what is expressed rhetorically by cosmic irony is ascribed existential or metaphysical significance. As Muecke puts it, such irony

540-465: A variety of pseudonyms. Scholar K. Brian Söderquist argues that these fictive authors should be viewed as explorations of the existential challenges posed by such an ironic, poetic self-consciousness. Their awareness of their own unlimited powers of self-interpretation prevents them from fully committing to any single self-narrative, and this leaves them trapped in an entirely negative mode of uncertainty. Nevertheless, seemingly against this, Thesis XV of

594-462: A writer is a romantic ironist if and when his or her work commits itself enthusiastically both in content and form to a hovering or unresolved debate between a world of merely man-made being and a world of ontological becoming. Similarly, metafiction is: "Fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions (esp. naturalism) and narrative techniques." It

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648-399: Is absolute because Socrates refuses to cheat. In this way, contrary to traditional accounts, Kierkegaard portrays Socrates as genuinely ignorant. According to Kierkegaard, Socrates is the embodiment of an ironic negativity that dismantles others' illusory knowledge without offering any positive replacement. Almost all of Kierkegaard's post-dissertation publications were written under

702-508: Is "total" in its denunciation of a figure actually intended to preserve "our openness to a systematic philosophy". Yet, it is Hegel's interpretation that would be taken up and amplified by Kierkegaard , who further extends the critique to Socrates himself. Thesis VIII of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's dissertation, The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates , states that "irony as infinite and absolute negativity

756-465: Is Socrates, who " knew that he knew nothing ", yet never ceased in his pursuit of truth and virtue. According to Schlegel, instead of resting upon a single foundation, "the individual parts of a successful synthesis formation support and negate each other reciprocally". Although Schlegel frequently does describe the Romantic project with a literary vocabulary, his use of the term "poetry" ( Poesie )

810-480: Is [a reply] to the general position which had been laid down and defended, that God was just and holy, and that his proceedings were marked with equity". Eliphaz refers to the content of his dream again for emphasis in Job 15:14–16 : If God puts no trust in His saints, And the heavens are not pure in His sight, How much less man, who is abominable and filthy, Who drinks iniquity like water! Bildad also refers to Eliphaz' revelation in chapter 25, although he presents

864-497: Is a dual distinction between and among three grades and four modes of ironic utterance. Grades of irony are distinguished "according to the degree to which the real meaning is concealed". Muecke names them overt , covert , and private : Muecke's typology of modes are distinguished "according to the kind of relationship between the ironist and the irony". He calls these impersonal irony , self-disparaging irony , ingénue irony , and dramatized irony : To consider irony from

918-408: Is a play within a play set in a lunatic asylum, in which it is difficult to tell whether the players are speaking only to other players or also directly to the audience. When The Herald says, "The regrettable incident you've just seen was unavoidable indeed foreseen by our playwright", there is confusion as to who is being addressed, the "audience" on the stage or the audience in the theatre. Also, since

972-454: Is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, thereby exposing the fictional illusion. Gesa Giesing writes that "the most common form of metafiction is particularly frequent in Romantic literature. The phenomenon is then referred to as Romantic Irony." Giesing notes that "There has obviously been an increased interest in metafiction again after World War II." For example, Patricia Waugh quotes from several works at

1026-500: Is also given metaphysical significance in the work of Søren Kierkegaard , among other philosophers. Romantic irony is closely related to cosmic irony, and sometimes the two terms are treated interchangeably. Romantic irony is distinct, however, in that it is the author who assumes the role of the cosmic force. The narrator in Tristam Shandy is one early example. The term is closely associated with Friedrich Schlegel and

1080-409: Is both a philosophical conception of the universe and an artistic program. Ontologically, it sees the world as fundamentally chaotic. No order, no far goal of time, ordained by God or right reason, determines the progression of human or natural events […] Of course, romantic irony itself has more than one mode. The style of romantic irony varies from writer to writer […] But however distinctive the voice,

1134-545: Is innocent and censures Job for asserting his freedom from guilt . Eliphaz exhorts Job to confess any concealed iniquities to alleviate his punishment. His arguments are well supported but God declares at the end of the book that Eliphaz has made a serious error in his speaking. Job offers a sacrifice to God for Eliphaz's error. His primary belief was that the righteous do not perish; the wicked alone suffer, and in measure as they have sinned ( Job 4:7–9 ). Eliphaz' argument is, in part, rooted in what he believes to have been

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1188-403: Is its highest form, but in no way its only form. Irony is not the only literary term to which Schlegel assigns extra-literary significance. Indeed, irony itself is presented as the uneasy synthesis of allegory and wit . Summarized by scholar Manfred Frank : "As allegory, the individual exceeds itself in the direction of the infinite, while as wit the infinite allows the unity that breaks from

1242-449: Is no ironist; so, instead of " he is being ironical " we would instead say " it is ironical that ". Verbal irony is "a statement in which the meaning that a speaker employs is sharply different from the meaning that is ostensibly expressed". Moreover, it is produced intentionally by the speaker, rather than being a literary construct, for instance, or the result of forces outside of their control. Samuel Johnson gives as an example

1296-405: Is non-standard. Instead, he goes back to the broader sense of the original Greek poiētikós , which refers to any kind of making. As Beiser puts it, "Schlegel intentionally explodes the narrow literary meaning of Poesie by explicitly identifying the poetic with the creative power in human beings, and indeed with the productive principle in nature itself." Poetry in the restricted literary sense

1350-593: Is one of the friends or comforters of Job in the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible . The first of the three visitors to Job ( Job 2:11 ), he was said to have come from Teman, an important city of Edom ( Amos 1:12 ; Obadiah 9 . Thus Eliphaz appears as the representative of the wisdom of the Edomites , which, according to Obadiah 8 , Jeremiah 49:7 , and Baruch 3:22 , was famous in antiquity. As an alternative to

1404-425: Is one's pride. Nevertheless, even as it excludes its victims, irony also has the power to build and strengthen the community of those who do understand and appreciate. Typically "irony" is used, as described above, with respect to some specific act or situation. In more philosophical contexts, however, the term is sometimes assigned a more general significance, in which it is used to describe an entire way of life or

1458-567: Is that of "life itself or any general aspect of life seen as fundamentally and inescapably an ironic state of affairs. No longer is it a case of isolated victims.... we are all victims of impossible situations". This usage has its origins primarily in the work of Friedrich Schlegel and other early 19th-century German Romantics and in Søren Kierkegaard 's analysis of Socrates in The Concept of Irony . Friedrich Schlegel

1512-444: Is the juxtaposition of what appears to be the case on the surface and what is actually the case or to be expected. It typically figures as a rhetorical device and literary technique . In some philosophical contexts, however, it takes on a larger significance as an entire way of life. Irony has been defined in many different ways, and there is no general agreement about the best way to organize its various types. 'Irony' comes from

1566-494: Is the lightest and the weakest form of subjectivity". Although this terminology is Hegelian in origin, Kierkegaard employs it with a somewhat different meaning. Richard J. Bernstein elaborates: It is infinite because it is directed not against this or that particular existing entity, but against the entire given actuality at a certain time. It is thoroughly negative because it is incapable of offering any positive alternative. Nothing positive emerges out of this negativity. And it

1620-406: The contrary of which is known by observers (especially the audience, sometimes to other characters within the drama) to be true. Tragic irony is a specific type of dramatic irony. Cosmic irony , sometimes also called "the irony of fate", presents agents as always ultimately thwarted by forces beyond human control. It is strongly associated with the works of Thomas Hardy . This form of irony

1674-465: The early German Romantics , and in their hands it assumed a metaphysical significance similar to cosmic irony in the hands of Kierkegaard. It was also of central importance to the literary theory advanced by New Criticism in mid-20th century. Building upon the double-level structure of irony, self-described "ironologist" D. C. Muecke proposes another, complementary way in which we may typify, and so better understand, ironic phenomena. What he proposes

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1728-556: The Greek eironeia ( εἰρωνεία ) and dates back to the 5th century BCE. This term itself was coined in reference to a stock-character from Old Comedy (such as that of Aristophanes ) known as the eiron , who dissimulates and affects less intelligence than he has—and so ultimately triumphs over his opposite, the alazon , a vain-glorious braggart. Although initially synonymous with lying, in Plato 's dialogues eironeia came to acquire

1782-498: The arguments that pass between Job and his friends, it is Eliphaz who opens each of the three series of discussions: American theologian Albert Barnes suggests that, because he spoke first each time, Eliphaz may have been the eldest of the friends. Eliphaz appears mild and modest. In his first reply to Job's complaints, he argues that those who are truly good are never entirely forsaken by Providence , but that punishment may justly be inflicted for secret sins . He denies that any man

1836-458: The concept as his own. Job rebukes him for it: Job pokes fun at Bildad asking him what spirit revealed it to him because he recognizes the argument as Eliphaz's spiritual revelation. Although quick-witted, and quick to respond, Eliphaz loses his composure in chapter 22, in the third and final round of speeches, accusing Job of specific faults, "sins against justice and charity towards others" : oppressing widows and orphans, refusing bread to

1890-564: The dilemma irony is introduced to resolve. Already in Schlegel's own day, G. W. F. Hegel was unfavorably contrasting Romantic irony with that of Socrates. On Hegel's reading, Socratic irony partially anticipates his own dialectical approach to philosophy. Romantic irony, by contrast, Hegel alleges to be fundamentally trivializing and opposed to all seriousness about what is of substantial interest. According to Rüdiger Bubner , however, Hegel's "misunderstanding" of Schlegel's concept of irony

1944-399: The dissertation states that "Just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony". Bernstein writes that the emphasis here must be on begins . Irony is not itself an authentic mode of life, but it is a precondition for attaining such a life. Although pure irony is self-destructive, it generates a space in which it becomes possible to reengage with

1998-400: The fragmentary finitude of which contradicts the intended infinite content. Schlegel presents irony as the "structural whole" sought by these two "abstract" figures. It accomplishes this by "surpassing of all self-imposed limits". Frank cites Schlegel's descriptions from a variety of sources: Irony consists in a "constant alternation ( Wechsel ) between self-creation and self-destruction", in

2052-427: The human situation of always striving towards, but never completely possessing, what is infinite or true. This presentation of Schlegel's account of irony is at odds with many 20th-century interpretations, which, neglecting the larger historical context, have been predominately postmodern . These readings overstate the irrational dimension of early Romantic thought at the expense of its rational commitments—precisely

2106-423: The hungry: a far cry from how he had originally described Job in his first address to him: Eliphaz also misconstrues Job's message as he scrambles to summarize Job's thoughts from chapter 21: Job did not argue that God could not prevent evil. Job was observing that in this life God often chooses not to prevent evil. Conventional wisdom told Eliphaz that God should immediately punish the wicked as that would be

2160-430: The interpretation "El is pure gold", or "My God is pure gold", it has also been suggested that the name might mean something along the lines of "My God is separate" or "My God is remote". The name "Eliphaz" for the spokesman of Edomite wisdom may have been suggested to the author of Job by the tradition which gave the name Eliphaz to Esau 's eldest son, the father of Teman ( Genesis 36:11 ; 1 Chronicles 1:35–36 ). In

2214-409: The just thing to do. Job, however, saw it differently, and in 24:1, Job laments Job yearns for the justice Eliphaz claims exists – an immediate punishment of the wicked. However, that simply did not hold true according to Job's observations. Nevertheless, Job does not question God's ultimate justice. He knows justice will eventually be served. Job asks Irony Irony , in its broadest sense,

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2268-566: The lines established by Cicero and Quintilian near the beginning of the 1st century CE. "Irony" entered the English language as a figure of speech in the 16th century with a meaning similar to the French ironie , itself derived from the Latin. Around the end of the 18th century, "irony" takes on another sense, primarily credited to Friedrich Schlegel and other participants in what came to be known as early German Romanticism . They advance

2322-418: The mind; accuses other men not only of wrong beliefs but of being wrong at their very foundations and blind to what these foundations imply[.] This is why, when we misunderstand an intended ironic utterance, we often feel more embarrassed about our failure to recognize the incongruity than we typically do when we simply misunderstand a statement of fact. When one's deepest beliefs are at issue, so too, often,

2376-525: The observation that a survey of the literature on irony leaves the reader with the " dominant impression" that the authors are simply "talking about different subjects". Indeed, Geoffrey Nunberg , a lexical semantician , observes a trend of sarcasm replacing the linguistic role of verbal irony as a result of all this confusion. In the 1906 The King's English , Henry Watson Fowler writes, "any definition of irony—though hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted—must include this, that

2430-409: The opening scenes, Job 1:19) of sin to warrant their punishment (Job 8:4). Bildad's brief third speech, just five verses in length, marked the silencing of the friends. This article related to the Hebrew Bible is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Eliphaz (Job) Eliphaz ( Hebrew : אֱלִיפָז ’Ělīp̄āz , " El is pure gold ") is called a Temanite ( Job 4:1 ). He

2484-594: The play within the play is performed by the inmates of a lunatic asylum, the theatre audience cannot tell whether the paranoia displayed before them is that of the players, or the people they are portraying. Muecke notes that, "in America, Romantic irony has had a bad press", while "in England...[it] is almost unknown." In a book entitled English Romantic Irony , Anne Mellor writes, referring to Byron , Keats , Carlyle , Coleridge , and Lewis Carroll : Romantic irony

2538-720: The sentence, " Bolingbroke was a holy man" (he was anything but). Verbal irony is sometimes also considered to encompass various other literary devices such as hyperbole and its opposite, litotes , conscious naïveté, and others. Dramatic irony provides the audience with information of which characters are unaware, thereby placing the audience in a position of advantage to recognize their words and actions as counter-productive or opposed to what their situation actually requires. Three stages may be distinguished — installation, exploitation, and resolution (often also called preparation, suspension, and resolution) — producing dramatic conflict in what one character relies or appears to rely upon,

2592-665: The successful translation of irony depends: common mastery of language, shared cultural values, and (for artistic ironies) a common experience of genre. A consequence of this element of in-group membership is that there is more at stake in whether one grasps an ironic utterance than there is in whether one grasps an utterance presented straight. As he puts it, the use of irony is An aggressively intellectual exercise that fuses fact and value, requiring us to construct alternative hierarchies and choose among them; [it] demands that we look down on other men's follies or sins; floods us with emotion-charged value judgments which claim to be backed by

2646-595: The surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same." A consequence of this, he observes, is that an analysis of irony requires the concept of a double audience "consisting of one party that hearing shall hear & shall not understand, & another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more & of the outsiders' incomprehension". From this basic feature, literary theorist Douglas C. Muecke identifies three basic characteristics of all irony: According to Wayne Booth , this uneven double-character of irony makes it

2700-454: The top of her chapter headed "What is metafiction?". These include: The thing is this. That of all the several ways of beginning a book […] I am confident my own way of doing it is best Since I've started this story, I've gotten boils […] Additionally, The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction says of John Fowles 's The French Lieutenant's Woman , "For the first twelve chapters...the reader has been able to immerse him or herself in

2754-503: The wholeness of the series to appear selectively." According to Schlegel, allegory points beyond itself toward that which can be expressed only poetically, not directly. He describes wit as a "selective flashing" ( Aufblitzen ); its content, he says, is "always paradoxical", its unifications of the finite and the infinite are always fragmentary. These two figures cannot exist together at once. What allegory attains indirectly by conjoining, wit attains only momentarily by total individuation,

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2808-540: The world in a genuine mode of ethical passion . For Kierkegaard himself, this took the form of religious inwardness. What is crucial, however, is just to in some way move beyond the purely (or merely) ironic. Irony is what creates the space in which we can learn and meaningfully choose how to live a life worthy ( vita digna ) of being called human. Referring to earlier self-conscious works such as Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy , D. C. Muecke points particularly to Peter Weiss 's 1964 play, Marat/Sade . This work

2862-405: Was at the forefront of the intellectual movement that has come to be known as Frühromantik , or early German Romanticism, situated narrowly between 1797 and 1801. For Schlegel, the "romantic imperative" (a rejoinder to Immanuel Kant 's " categorical imperative ") is to break down the distinction between art and life with the creation of a "new mythology" for the modern age. In particular, Schlegel

2916-475: Was responding to what he took to be the failure of the foundationalist enterprise, exemplified for him by the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte . Irony is a response to the apparent epistemic uncertainties of anti-foundationalism. In the words of scholar Frederick C. Beiser , Schlegel presents irony as consisting in "the recognition that, even though we cannot attain truth, we still must forever strive toward it, because only then do we approach it." His model

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