ABSTRACT
The art of the ironist is most like the arts of the wit and the raconteur; and not only because irony runs the same risks of failure through being too laboured or too subtle, too brief or too long drawn out, mistimed in the telling or ill-adapted to audience or occasion. The ironic events and situations which life itself presents are more or less effective according to how they exhibit the balance, economy, and precision of a work of art. And to have a sense of irony, to be able to see the ironic potential of a situation or state of affairs, is to have, among other qualities, something analogous to the artist's ability to see what would make a good picture or the writer's ability to see how an event could be turned into a good story. The victim of irony is the person whose 'confident unawareness' has directly involved him in an ironic situation.
