ABSTRACT
Some readers may be a little surprised to see irony attributed to a tragic poet: and it may therefore be proper, before we proceed to illustrate the nature of the thing as it appears in the works of Sophocles, to explain and justify our application of the term. We must begin with a remark or two on the more ordinary use of the word, on that which to distinguish it from the subject of our present enquiry, we will call verbal irony. This most familiar species of irony may be described as a figure which enables the speaker to convey his meaning with greater force by means of a contrast between his thought and his expression, or to speak more accurately, between the thought which he evidently designs to express, and that which his words properly signify. The cases in which this figure may be advantageously employed are so various as to include some directly opposite in their nature. For it will serve to express assent and approbation as well as the contrary. Still as a friend cannot be defended unless against an enemy who attacks him, the use of verbal irony must in all cases be either directly or indirectly polemical. It is a weapon properly belonging to the armoury of controversy, and not fitted to any entirely peaceable occasion. This is not the less true because, as the enginery of war is often brought out, and sham fights exhibited, for the public amusement in time of peace, so there is a sportive irony, which instead of indicating any contrariety of opinion or animosity of feeling, is the surest sign of perfect harmony and goodwill. And as there is a mode of expressing sentiments of the utmost esteem and unanimity by an ironical reproof or contradiction, so there is an ironical self commendation, by which a man may playfully confess his own failings. In the former case the speaker feigns the existence of adversaries whose language he pretends to adopt: in the latter he supposes himself sur
rounded, not as he really is by indulgent friends, but by severe judges of his actions, before whom it is necessary for him to disguise the imperfections of his character. But where irony is not merely jocular, it is not simply serious, but earnest. With respect to opinion it implies a conviction so deep, as to disdain a direct refutation of the opposite party: with respect to feeling, it implies an emotion so strong, as to be able to command itself, and to suppress its natural tone, in order to vent itself with greater force.
