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     Irony is not a matter of literary style.  It reflects
the relationship of the participants in dialogue to each
other, to their argument and to the world to which the
argument refers.  And, to the extent that it reflects these
relationships, irony is expresses the ambiguities and
contradictions inherent in them.  Hence the satisfaction that
participants derive from it.  Hence also the annoyance and
discomfort which the irony engenders.  The ambiguities and
contradictions are embarrassing and oppressive.  One may try
to conceal them by denial, but denial does not cause them to
go away.  One might try to deal with them by making them
explicit but for the circumstance that ambiguities are by
their nature impossible to define.  and incongruities which
are more than verbal will not be vitiated by exposition.  In
the end, if one undertakes to converse at all, one has no
choice but to resort to irony.

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Copyright 2005, Ernst Jochen Meyer
