Irony

by Claire Colebrook

In a postmodern era of stimulation, mass communication and disenchantment, how are we to recognize sincerity from irony?
Irony is both a figure of speech--saying one thing and meaning another--and an attitude to existence, in which the ironic subject adopts a position of skepticism and mistrust in relation to everyday language. In this clear, user-friendly guide, Claire Colebrook provides an historical and theoretical overview of irony, tracing its development from Socrates to the present-day, and explores the challenge that irony presents to communication and representation in literature today.
This is the essential guide for any student of literary theory looking to unravel the many theories of this complex subject.

Genres: Nonfiction, Linguistics

191 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Claire Colebrook is an Australian cultural theorist, currently appointed Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. She has published numerous works on Gilles Deleuze, visual art, poetry, queer theory, film studies, contemporary literature, theory, cultural studies and visual culture.

Reviews

[M]

I learned quite a bit about irony from this book. As Colebrook notes,

[d]espite its unwieldy complexity, irony has a frequent and common definition: saying what is contrary to what is meant,

a statement she traces back to Quintilian ("who was already looking back to Socrates and Ancient Greek literature"). It could be a ridiculous counterfactual, like

saying "Another day in paradise," when the weather is appalling. . . .

Yet "[w]e live in a world of quotation, pastiche, simulation, and cynicism: a general and all-encompassing irony."

What then is the poor reader of book reviews to do if, in passing in a review clearly about Colebrook's careful elucidation of the complex history of irony, I assert, "I think Goodreads' new policy regarding book reviews needing to be about the book makes wonderful sense"?

Or that deleting a review that exhibited irony, like in such an assertion, is a wonderful mise-en-abyme demonstrating the very cynical context in which the reviewer grapples with the difficulty of aboutness, while also exposing the complexity attendant with being honest or genuine in reviewing?

I do love me some irony, and Colebrook's book is quite good.

And THAT is how you do a review about a book, motherfuckers.

[Malcolm]

"Irony lies in the tensions of language" or so Claire Colebrook reminds us on p19 of this excellent critical introduction to and exploration of one of the most ill-used, misunderstood concepts in contemporary literary theory and philosophy. She effective grounds her case in ancient Greeks, shows how notions and understandings of irony changed with the Romantics, and explores contemporary and postmodern deployments of irony. In doing so she illustrates the broader theoretical and conceptual points by drawing on well known literary texts. It is a great example of an excellent series.

[Rob Short]

Some useful history-of-use/concept stuff here, but repetitive. A smidge reductive in places, and *Christ* the prose is dry.

[Eric]

Colebrook offers a nice examination of irony's development as a trope. Especially nice is her exploration of how irony exceeds to bounds of a trope for both the Romantics and in postmodern theory (Derrida, de Man, Deleuze and Guattari, et al.), becoming a way of being and/or a way of thinking about the world.

With the exception of continual reference to Socrates, particularly in the context of how Socratic irony has been variously defined in different eras, Colebrook does stick mostly to looking at literature. My proclivity would have been for a little more attention to irony outside the realms of poetry, fiction, and literary theory (speech-act theory, e.g.), but that doesn't detract from the quality of Colebrook's project here.

[Bruce]

The p-mod bits are a struggle, but overall illuminating. Will say more after I've finished - will need to re-read most of it.

Thinking of reading her 'Irony in the work of philosophy' as well - has anyone read them both? Does the other book add much to this one?

[Jeremy]

Dr. Donnelly mentioned Isidore de Seville's definition of "irony" in class.

[Beth]

Interesting topic, but reading it was like fighting through brambles while on sleeping pills.

[Mathew Walls]

Oh my god, so boring. I read the first chapter and it was unbearably slow and tedious.