ABSTRACT
The strategic political use of irony in slave spirituals tills fertile soil for cultivating a unique understanding of linguistic coding in the texts of this iconic American music. The irony of disguising an African tradition in the plain aural view of a European Christian message may have been unintentional, but the longstanding effects of West African melodic patterns on American music clearly indicate its success. This chapter examines irony as an often humor-infused musical code among nineteenth-century slaves who exhibited an ostensible acceptance of their captivity, while simultaneously plotting freedom. In addition, the irony of the homogeneous chordal singing that bound together the voices of the slave masters vertically, coexisting on a parallel plane with the much freer linear call and response of those they had enslaved, also merits attention. The functioning of irony in social discourse between racial minorities and the dominant white culture in the United States continues throughout the nation's history and is still in active use.
