irony

Literary device that uses words to convey a meaning opposite to their literal sense, through the use of humour or sarcasm. It can be traced through all periods of literature, from classical Greek and Roman epics and dramas to the subtle irony of Chaucer and the 20th-century writer's method for dealing with despair, as in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1952). Dramatic irony takes place when the audience perceives in some words or actions of the performance an underlying significance that is not apparent to the characters in the play.

The Greek philosopher Plato used irony in his dialogues, in which Socrates elicits truth through a pretence of naivety. Sophocles' use of dramatic irony also has a high seriousness, as in Oedipus Rex, in which Oedipus prays for the discovery and punishment of the city's polluter, not knowing that it is himself. Eighteenth-century scepticism provided a natural environment for irony, with Jonathan Swift using the device as a powerful weapon in Gulliver's Travels and elsewhere.

Irony commonly criticizes under cover of praise, and is often used colloquially as well as in literature, in phrases such as ‘You're a fine one.’