The concept of irony is closely related to paradox. In fact, there is no substantial difference between the two in Brooks. In the whole new criticism, the word "irony" is used more. Brooks is the main expositor of the "irony" theory of the new criticism. In his words: "A sentence is obviously distorted by the context, which is called irony". (Zhao Yiheng, 1988: 335) Obviously, this is a very broad definition. The purpose of the concept of "irony" is still to reveal the complex semantic changes in literary texts. According to the new criticism of the concept of "polysemy", the basic characteristics of literary texts are semantic fuzziness and semantic diversity. Irony, a linguistic phenomenon, conforms to this literary definition. For this reason, "irony" has become one of the most commonly used concepts in new criticism.
From the semantic point of view, "irony" originally refers to a linguistic phenomenon of "irony" or "insincerity". In irony, the meaning of a symbol is different from its literal meaning, or even the opposite. According to the concept of linguistics, any symbol exists in a certain context, and its meaning will change with the change of context. So is the principle of "irony". In the phenomenon of "irony", language symbols skillfully use the specific context, so that a symbol no longer expresses its original meaning, but expresses another completely opposite meaning. In this way, a "satire" is produced. Judging from the signifier and signified structure of semiotics, "irony" is actually a broken state of symbolic signifier and signified. Language is a conventional symbol system. The relationship between the signifier and the signified is fixed. However, the appearance of "irony" makes the signifier of one symbol point to another, rather than its fixed signifier. The use of language in scientific and technological texts completely conforms to the agreed rules and coding principles of language, and resolutely avoids the fracture between signifier and signified. Literary texts deliberately use various means to violate the agreed language rules, thus making literary texts a symbol system with vague semantics and complexity. It is not difficult to see that the essence of "irony" is still semantic deformation and complexity. In the view of new criticism, "irony" is one of the important manifestations of literary characteristics and one of the important means to form literary characteristics.
In the history of western literary criticism, "irony" has always been regarded as an accidental language skill, or at most as a figure of speech. The new criticism raises irony to the height of literary characteristics and regards it as a typical semantic change phenomenon, thus making it the fundamental attribute of literary texts. In their History of Criticism, Wimsatt and Brooks insisted on renaming the new criticism as "ironic poetics". Regarding irony, they clearly pointed out: "We can regard irony as a cognitive principle, and the principle of irony extends to a contradictory principle, and then to a universal principle of image and image structure-this is the necessary tension when using words creatively and energetically." (Weimset et al., 1988: 692) Since "irony" is a semantic change, especially the contradictory state between literal meaning and true meaning, its semantic structure will inevitably take many different forms. In New Criticism, Mr. Zhao Yiheng once divided irony into various types, such as restrained narration, exaggerated narration, irony in reality, questioning irony, ambiguous irony, specious irony, romantic irony, macro irony in character theme and language style, etc. No matter what kind of irony, it presents the characteristics of semantic superposition and multiple semantics. It greatly increases the semantic level of the text and effectively enhances the perceptibility of the language.