Contemporary Context Of Literary Irony

Irony is one of the most important categories of western literary theory. During the long period from ancient Greece to contemporary era, the importance of irony has been stressed by many theorists. Recently, this term appears more and more frequently in the region of literary criticism in China. But in most articles, irony is only seen as "a micro technique of rhetoric". In my opinion, as "a way of seeing the world", irony also has the important cultural significance. This article is divided into six parts:1. Introduction. Irony has the important significance of both practice and theory, especially in context of modern culture. But there are many difficulties for us to determine the fundamental connotation of irony. The difficulties mainly include three points: the long history of the changing of irony' connotation; the variety of ways of study on irony; the confusion caused by the translation of irony in Chinese.2. The changes of connotation of irony in historic context. This part briefly traces back the historic progress of irony' connotation. Traditional Irony is predominantly an admixture of ideas from Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. It mainly refers to the comparison of the surface meaning to the underlying meaning. As a way of saving the soul of human beings, Schlegel's Romantic Irony has a metaphysical significance. For theorists of New Criticism, irony is a general structural principle of poems.3. The basic meaning of literary irony. Literary irony is a technique of literary expression with a kind of implication of taunting and denying as well as nature of disclosing in accordance of the pressure of context, while the author tries to maintain the balance of these complex contradiction elements after he sees though the paradox of the world.4. The aesthetic feature of literary irony. This part analyses the aesthetic feature of irony mainly through three points. In the literary irony, the author always adopts an unreliable narrator to keep distance from the work. Through the clear field of vision, the author can see through the absurd and funny parts of life. Comedic factor is the innate characteristic of irony, but it is the "smile with tears in eyes" which can not break up fromthe tragic factor. Moreover, irony can also gives rise to greet literary tension.5. The postmodernism interpretation of Chinese contemporary literary irony. Diab Hasson considers irony as one of the eleven features of postmodernism. Although China has not yet entered postmodern times, under the influence of western thoughts, a lot of Chinese literary works have the color of postmodernism. Thus to interpret Chinese literary irony from the point of postmodernism may help us find the modern "drift" trend of irony.6. The expanding of irony's region. With the change of contemporary culture, the region of irony is becoming more and more wide. Today, we can find irony in many fields, such as film, TV play, sketch and so on.