Tragic Irony: Ancient and Modern

Abstract

If we go back in time for a brief consideration of the ancient Greek drama, we do so in order further to determine the meaning of our central term: irony, in this case tragic irony. If tragic irony is a universal literary category, why did it not make itself felt before the time of Friedrich Schlegel and the advent of romanticism? Certainly it is not an invention or discovery of the modern mind, and yet Aristotle, that astute and far-ranging philosophical critic, makes no reference to it at all, not in our sense of the term. Not until many centuries later do critics make much of the element of irony but only as a rhetorical device that brings out the contradiction between what a character says and what he actually means. The concept of tragic irony (what Thirlwall loosely called “the irony of fate”) does not establish itself on the literary scene until the romantic revolt breaks out in full force. Why did the modern sensibility stress so obsessively that to which the classical mind seemed utterly blind?