Example (joke)
A long-winded man asked his neighbor, "Why is your pig so thin?"
The neighbor said, "because I won't eat!" "
The wordy man asked, "Why?"
The neighbor said, "This kind of pig has a long mouth."
The long-winded man asked again, "Why don't you eat when your mouth is too long?"
The neighbor said, "How can you afford such a long mouth, only caring about digging roots and complaining?"
Ironic explanation:
The word irony comes from ancient Greece, and its definition is a process of continuous development.
The classical period has three meanings: 1. Pretend ignorance. In aristophanes's comedies, there is always a character who says something stupid in front of a clever opponent, but finally proves that these stupid words are true, thus making the opponent give up. 2. Socratic irony (the other party unconsciously exposed the flaw under his inquiry and questioning) 3. Roman irony (literal meaning is inconsistent or contrary to true meaning), people call Oedipus "the all-powerful master and the god of wisdom", but they don't know where he was born or how he was born.
/kloc-In the first half of the 9th century, German Romantic literary theory reformed the concept of irony, expanding it from a rhetorical concept to a literary creation principle. Friedrich Schlaege, a German literary critic, declared that as a creative origin, irony means "recognizing that the world is contradictory in nature, and only an ambiguous attitude can grasp the contradictory integrity of the world".
In the 20th century, irony was further elaborated in the hands of new critics. Eliot, Richards and Empson all talked about irony. Brooks gave a detailed explanation of irony, which he defined as "the obvious distortion of statement by context". For example, "sunny day" can be the antonym of its literal meaning in a certain context. Context can reverse the meaning of a sentence, which is irony.
The most striking feature of irony is that the actual meaning of a statement is contradictory to its surface meaning. From the perspective of poetry, as Richards said, irony comes from the "balance of opposites", that is, aspects that usually conflict with each other, repel each other and offset each other, and are combined into a balanced state in poetry. This poetic feature of irony is ultimately accomplished by the role of context.
Irony in poetry is first and foremost a language skill. From the perspective of using language skills, irony can be divided into exaggerated narrative, irony, poetic theory and so on.
In the text interpretation of poetry, there is also irony formed at the theme level: that is, the complex theme meaning of this paper has two or more complementary expressions of opposites, forming a strong irony.
Second, the interpretation of irony
German poet Heisenberg is a member of the German figurative poetry school, and his poems inevitably have the disadvantages of the figurative poetry school playing with words, but it is not very serious. Basically, every sentence in So What is the opposite. There are twelve pairs of paradoxes in the first paragraph. Seemingly decent people are actually the most corrupt people, but honest people are incredible informers, lacking in energy, chaste and virtuous. The arrangement of these specious examples does not seem to have any profound connotation in itself, compared with Pope's specious poem On Man, which is full of philosophical thinking (hesitating, whether to be spiritual or to be fleshy,/living only for death, thinking only for mistake; /He is too rational, no matter what he thinks, he is still ignorant ...), and even he is suspected of playing word games. However, the beauty of this poem lies in the clever use of irony. Where does this ironic effect come from? Let's look at the title of the poem-"So What". On the one hand, there is a sober realist who strongly exposes and criticizes bad social phenomena. He speaks with confidence, but on the other hand, he seems to be a rare fool who sees through the world. In the face of Party A who is full of rhetoric, he simply says "so what"-so what? The implication is that you can change this reality? Who will listen to you? Why are you so tired and bored? Don't act like "the world is muddled and I'm alone", man, you're still young! As a result, the poet's attitude towards reality (criticism and indifference) has formed a strong contrast, which has produced a strong irony effect, giving this poem, which belongs to the figurative school, a new aesthetic meaning and a multiple expression of the theme meaning. 1. The poet doesn't want to expose the social ills of criticism, but just ridicules those "radicals" who don't know the depth. 2. The poet is mocking the "radicals". Similarly, the second, third, fourth and fifth verses can have ironic effects with the title of the poem, so I won't go into details.
Another poem by Heisenberg, 1965, an episode made in Germany, also uses satire on several levels:
1, Oedipus plot, that is, Oedipus plot, but the word "mother" did not appear in the poem, but the word "father" appeared.
Dad, the era of Hitler's rule has passed, but the remnants are still there. The shadow is still there. We want to get rid of all the shadow of Hitler, but Josef Goebbels, the former Nazi propaganda minister, is in power now.
Hitler was a madman and a "butcher", so was his propaganda minister, but now he wants to take power as a "rational man". This is the Oedipus plot made in Germany in 1965.
The use of irony in these three levels shows the poet's dissatisfaction and ridicule of 1965 German politics.
There are also examples of irony in China's ancient poems, such as Jia Sheng by Li Shangyin. "Historical Records Biography of Qu Jia" records: "Jia Sheng asked. Emperor Xiaowen was allowed to sit in the Xuan room (the main hall in front of Weiyang Palace). There is a sense of ghosts and gods in the world, so ask the origin of ghosts and gods. Jia Sheng is like a Taoist priest. At midnight, Wendi Deng sat in the front seat (with her knees moving up close to the other seat). " Then he said,' I haven't seen Jia Sheng for a long time, and I feel that I have gone too far, so I might as well go now'. In the eyes of ordinary feudal literati, this is probably a great event worth bragging about. But the poet Li Shangyin is original and writes new ideas.
Jia Yi, an outstanding politician and writer in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, was vilified by the old school and was demoted as the teacher of King Changsha. Many years later, Emperor Wen's visit to the minister was supposed to discuss state affairs and ask Jia Yi about the principles and strategies of governing the country. I didn't expect to ask about ghosts and gods. Li Shangyin caught this unnoticed matter of "asking ghosts and gods" and used irony to create an unexpected strong irony effect.
"In the propaganda room, the sages visited the minister, and Jia Geng was incoherent." Starting from the front, there is no derogatory meaning. The first sentence is marked with the words "seeking" and "visiting", which seems to warmly praise Wendy's eagerness and enthusiasm for seeking talents. Sincerity and modesty towards sages are really the so-called longing for sages and an open mind. From "looking for sages" to "visiting courtiers", it can be seen that it has reached the level of "not leaving sages in the wild". Jia Sheng's Talent is praised as "more incoherent", which makes people admire Jia Sheng's young talent, speaking style and brilliant talent. Wendi and Jia Sheng unconsciously talked about "sitting at the table at midnight", describing the situation of Wendi asking modestly, listening attentively and even "sitting at his knees" vividly, making historical records vivid and touching, full of life. Through the rendering of this detail, Wendy pushed Jia Yi's talent from "seeking" to "visiting" and then to "praising" to the highest point, but the turning point also began in the climax. But the poet did not show his bones and turned his back. Instead, he gently turned it over with a sigh pen, that is, he added the word "poor" before the "empty seat before midnight". Poor. The seemingly understated "pity" seems to be less emotional than "sad" and "deplorable", but it forms a strong irony with the latter sentence "Mo Wen ordinary people ask ghosts and gods" and the first two sentences. Jia Sheng was deeply impressed by an emperor who was so earnest and humbly seeking advice. He even "sat before midnight" and made us think that he was discussing the way to govern the country and protect the people, but the result was "asking ghosts and gods". What kind of seeking talents is this? Jia Yi, on the other hand, is full of economic knowledge and the way of governing the country. The king did not ask him about it, but asked him about ghosts and gods. Is this the sorrow of the emperor or Jia Yi? In this strong irony, we see the sorrow of an emperor and a courtier, the sorrow of a country and a dynasty.