Socratic Irony
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Socratic Irony
Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique. Irony can be categorized into different types, including ''verbal irony'', ''dramatic irony'', and ''situational irony''. Verbal, dramatic, and situational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. The ironic form of simile, used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes can emphasize one's meaning by the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth, denies the contrary of the truth, or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection. Definitions Henry Watson Fowler, in ''The King's English'', says, "any definition of irony—though hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted—must include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same." Also, Eric Partridge ...
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A Dictionary Of Modern English Usage
''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' (1926), by Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933), is a style guide to British English usage, pronunciation, and writing. Covering topics such as plurals and literary technique, distinctions among like words (homonyms and synonyms), and the use of foreign terms, the dictionary became the standard for other style guides to writing in English. Hence, the 1926 first edition remains in print, along with the 1965 second edition, edited by Ernest Gowers, which was reprinted in 1983 and 1987. The 1996 third edition was re-titled as ''The New Fowler's Modern English Usage'', and revised in 2004, was mostly rewritten by Robert W. Burchfield, as a usage dictionary that incorporated corpus linguistics data; and the 2015 fourth edition, revised and re-titled ''Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', was edited by Jeremy Butterfield, as a usage dictionary. Informally, readers refer to the style guide and dictionary as ''Fowler's Modern English Usag ...
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Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna Hall, Susanna, and twins Hamnet Shakespeare, Hamnet and Judith Quiney, Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, ...
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Geoffrey Galt Harpham
Geoffrey Galt Harpham (born 1946) is an American academic who until recently served as president and director of the National Humanities Center. One of the characteristics of his tenure was the encouragement of dialogue between the humanities on the one hand and the natural and social sciences on the other. He is a senior fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University and also a Life Member of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge. He is in addition a member of the board of visitors of Ralston College. His book, ''The Humanities and the Dream of America'', was published by the University of Chicago Press in March 2011. Bibliography Books * On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (Princeton University Press, 1982; paperback, 1986). 2nd ed. with new preface (Davies Publishing, 2006). This work was the primary inspiration for “Domus Aurea,” a composition by Edmund Campion for piano and vibraphone, which premiered at the Centre Pompid ...
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Situational Irony - Baker Street Tube Station
Situational ethics or situation ethics takes into account ''only'' the particular context of an act when evaluating it ethically, rather than judging it only according to absolute moral standards. With the intent to have a fair basis for judgments or action, one looks to personal ideals of what is appropriate to guide them, rather than an unchanging universal code of conduct, such as Biblical law under divine command theory or the Kantian categorical imperative. Proponents of situational approaches to ethics include existentialist philosophers Sartre, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Jaspers, and Heidegger. Specifically Christian forms of situational ethics placing love above all particular principles or rules were proposed in the first half of the twentieth century by liberal theologians Rudolf Bultmann, John A. T. Robinson, and Joseph Fletcher. These theologians point specifically to ''agapē'', or unconditional love, as the highest end. Other theologians who advocated ...
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Figure Of Speech
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from ordinary language use in order to produce a rhetorical effect. Figures of speech are traditionally classified into '' schemes,'' which vary the ordinary sequence of words, and '' tropes,'' where words carry a meaning other than what they ordinarily signify. An example of a scheme is a polysyndeton: the repetition of a conjunction before every element in a list, whereas the conjunction typically would appear only before the last element, as in "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"—emphasizing the danger and number of animals more than the prosaic wording with only the second "and". An example of a trope is the metaphor, describing one thing as something that it clearly is not in order to lead the mind to compare them, in "All the world's a stage." Four rhetorical operations Classical rhetoricians classified figures of speech into four categories or :Jansen, Jeroen (2008) Imitatio'' ...
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Litotes
In rhetoric, litotes (, or ), also known classically as ''antenantiosis'' or ''moderatour'', is a figures of speech, figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, often incorporating double negatives for effect. Litotes is a form of understatement, more specifically Meiosis (figure of speech), meiosis, and is always deliberate with the intention of Stress (linguistics), emphasis. However, the interpretation of negation may depend on context, including cultural context. In speech, it may also depend on intonation and emphasis; for example, the phrase "not bad" can be intonated differently so as to mean either "mediocre" or "excellent". Along the same lines, litotes can be used as a euphemism to diminish the harshness of an observation; "He isn't the cleanest person I know" could be used as a means of indicating that someone is a messy person. The use of litotes is common in English ...
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Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy within the Lyceum and the wider Aristotelian tradition. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, meteorology, geology, and government. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. It was above all from his teachings that the West inherited its intellectual lexicon, as well as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion. Little is known about his life. Aristotle was born in th ...
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Platonic Dialogues
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning on the European continent. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Ancient Greek philosophy and the Western and Middle Eastern philosophies descended from it. He has also shaped religion and spirituality. The so-called neoplatonism of his interpreter Plotinus greatly influenced both Christianity (through Church Fathers such as Augustine) and Islamic philosophy (through e.g. Al-Farabi). In modern times, Friedrich Nietzsche diagnosed Western culture as growing in the shadow of Plato (famously calling Christianity "Platonism for the masses"), while Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradit ...
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Alazon
''Alazṓn'' ( grc, ἀλαζών) is one of three stock characters in comedy of the theatre of ancient Greece. He is the opponent of the '' eirôn''. The ''alazṓn'' is an impostor that sees himself as greater than he actually is. The ''senex iratus'' (the angry father) and the ''miles gloriosus'' (the braggart soldier) are two types of ''alazṓn''. ''Miles Gloriosus'' ''Miles Gloriosus'' (literally, "braggart-soldier", in Latin) is a stock character of a boastful soldier from the comic theatre of ancient Rome, and variations on this character have appeared in drama and fiction ever since.Frye, Northrop. 1957. ''Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays''. London: Penguin, 1990. . The character derives from the ''alazṓn'' or "braggart" of the Greek Old Comedy (e.g. Aristophanes). The term "Miles Gloriosus" is occasionally applied in a contemporary context to refer to a posturing and self-deceiving boaster or bully. Literary instances In the play ''Miles Gloriosus'' ("Boast ...
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Eiron
In the theatre of ancient Greece, the ''eirōn'' ( grc, εἴρων) "dissembler" was one of various stock characters in comedy.Carlson (1993, 23) and Janko (1987, 45, 170). The usually succeeded by bringing down his braggart opponent (the "boaster") by understating his own abilities.Frye (1957, 172). History The developed in Greek Old Comedy and can be found in many of Aristophanes' plays. For example, in ''The Frogs'', after the God Dionysus claims to have sunk 12 or 13 enemy ships with Cleisthenes (son of Sibyrtius), his slave Xanthias says "Then I woke up." The philosopher Aristotle mentions the in his ''Nicomachean Ethics'', where he says: "in the form of understatement, self-deprecation, and its possessor the self-deprecator" (1108a12).'ἡ δ' ἐπὶ τὸ ἔλαττον εἰρωνεία καὶ εἴρων (1108a12, emphasis added); Perseus Digital Library (2006)Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics In this passage, Aristotle establishes the ''eirōn'' as one of the main ...
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Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various times through the centuries. The encyclopaedia is maintained by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 contributors. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. Since 2016, it has been published exclusively as an online encyclopaedia. Printed for 244 years, the ''Britannica'' was the longest running in-print encyclopaedia in the English language. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, as three volumes. The encyclopaedia grew in size: the second edition was 10 volumes, and by its fourth edition (1801–1810) it had expanded to 20 volumes. Its rising stature as a scholarly work helped recruit eminent con ...
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