While dramatic irony entails a contrast between what an audience knows and what characters know, verbal irony is a contrast between words and their meaning, and situational irony is a contrast between ...

Adapted from "Irony and Sarcasm" by Roger Kreuz (MIT Press, 2020). Reprinted with permission from MIT Press. In February 1996, Alanis Morissette released the fourth single from “Jagged Little Pill,” ...

Like simile, metaphor, personification and hyperbole, irony is a very useful figure of speech. Writers and other creative workers regularly make use of it, including comedians. It can, however, also ...

In fairness to Alanis, pop singers and Canadians aren’t the only ones who struggle to understand irony. There’s an entire line of cognitive research dedicated to understanding the concept (as well as ...

As the great British comic, Ricky Gervais once implied, England and America may not so much be divided by a common tongue, but by their distinctive use (and in the case of the Brits, their abuse) of ...

The cliché: Each year as we revisit 9/11, commentators and critics recall the "death of irony" that was widely trumpeted in the days after the attack. This year, the mentions, as with the 9/11 ...

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

On September 18, 2001, Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, declared, “I think it’s the end of the age of irony.” He was trashed for the sentiment. Only a month after the event, Michiko Kakutani ...