Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'And irony'

The purpose of my thesis is to explore the way Plato uses irony to further his philosophical ends. The key theme might be glossed as turning burdens into boons. The first chapter looks at irony in general; its history and nature and way writers put it to use. The second chapter looks to ‘Socratic Irony’ and, after a survey of the ever-growing scholarship, argues for a more traditional approach (against the recent scholarship). Through false modesty and false praise Socrates shows people the folly of their false conceit; and in particular, Socrates appeals to these people’s vanity precisely to expose that very vanity. The third chapter explores how Socrates ironically turns vices to a virtuous end: in the Phaedo he appeals to the bodily desires and fears of his interlocutors to lead them away from bodily attachment. For example, he exploits their (bodily) fear of death to encourage them towards a life which avoids bodily attachment. While chapters two and three look at how Socrates responds to his interlocuters, chapters four and five discuss how Plato interacts with the reader. The fourth chapter concerns the way Plato’s symbolism can tend in two directions: in the Symposium he uses passionate love (erōs) to typify philosophy even though this is the very opposite of what is required from a philosopher, who is self-controlled and unmoved by bodily desires. This irony reflects an ‘erotic’ pedagogic technique which requires us to peer beneath the surface meaning of the text. Finally the fifth chapter turns to the account of erōs in the Phaedrus and argues that this conceals an account of how to read and respond to Plato’s text. I claim that Plato wants to inculcate certain thinking habits (or epistemic skills) in us, which habits are encouraged and developed by interpreting his texts and unravelling his ironies. Throughout my thesis emphasis is placed on explaining why Plato would want to employ irony in his texts—as opposed to speaking more directly, say—and this issue comes to the fore in the final chapter. On the one hand, irony helps Plato speak to two different audiences at the same time; on the other hand, his use of irony is employed to facilitate the all-important transition from the physical to the intellectual.

This dissertation takes an integrated approach to the study of audiovisual cues to verbal irony. While pragmatic studies have mainly focused on the role of the discourse context in irony detection, little is known about the role of prosodic and gestural cues in this process. The thesis includes four experimental studies—each one described in a separate chapter—addressing a set of questions using a variety of experimental designs. The first one is a case study of a professional comedian and reveals (a) that ironic utterances display a higher density of prosodic and gestural markers than non-ironic utterances; and (b) that gestural markers can appear both temporally aligned with prosodic prominence but can also appear independently, as gestural codas. The second study includes two experiments: (a) a production experiment eliciting spontaneous ironic speech which reveals that in non-professional spontaneous speech, too, speakers employ a higher density of prosodic and gestural markers in ironic compared to non-ironic utterances; and (b) a perception experiment on the contribution of gestural codas to the detection of verbal irony, which shows that speakers detect ironic intent significantly better when post-utterance gestural codas are present than when they are not. Following up on this idea, the third study presents three perception experiments on the relative contribution of contextual vs. prosodic vs. gestural cues to verbal irony understanding. Overall, results of the three experiments emphasize the role of contrast effects in irony perception. The first experiment shows that (a) listeners detect irony more accurately when they have access to both prosodic and gestural cues than when they just rely on prosodic information, (b) that listeners rely more strongly on gestural information than on prosodic information, and (c) that listeners rely more heavily on gestural cues than on prosodic or contextual ones for detecting irony. Finally, the fourth study addresses the contribution of prosodic and gestural cues to children’s early understanding of verbal irony, showing that mismatched multimodal cues of emotion facilitate the detection of irony by 5-year-old children. Altogether, this dissertation shows that both prosodic and gestural markers of irony aid in guiding the hearer in the interpretation of an utterance by providing overt clues about the assumptions, emotions and attitudes held by the speaker. Together with recent studies on the general pragmatic effects of prosody and gesture, the claim is that audiovisual markers of irony are strong triggers of implicature strength which help decode speech intentions in interaction. In addition, the dissertation presents novel empirical evidence of the stronger effects of multimodal—and especially gestural—cues in comparison with contextual cues, both in adult and child populations. This crucial finding leads us to claim that the study of prosodic and gestural cues to verbal irony should be at the core of any pragmatic or psycholinguistic account of verbal irony production and comprehension.
Esta tesis aborda el estudio de las marcas audiovisuales de la ironía verbal desde una perspectiva integral. Los estudios pragmáticos se han centrado principalmente en investigar el papel del contexto discursivo en la detección de la ironía, pero poco se sabe sobre el rol que desempeñan las marcas prosódicas y gestuales en este proceso. La presente tesis incluye cuatro estudios experimentales —cada uno de ellos incluido en un capítulo separado— que abordan diferentes preguntas de investigación utilizando varios diseños experimentales. El primero es un estudio de caso sobre un cómico profesional y muestra, en primer lugar, que los enunciados irónicos presentan una mayor densidad de marcadores prosódicos y gestuales que los enunciados no irónicos y, segundo, que los marcadores gestuales pueden aparecer alineados temporalmente con la prominencia prosódica, pero también de forma independiente, como codas gestuales. El segundo estudio incluye dos experimentos. Uno de producción —diseñado para obtener discurso irónico espontáneo—, cuyos resultados confirman que también en habla espontánea los hablantes no profesionales emplean una mayor densidad de marcadores prosódicos y gestuales cuando son irónicos en comparación con cuando no lo son; y, en segundo lugar, un experimento de percepción que investiga la contribución de las codas gestuales a la detección de la ironía verbal y cuyos resultados muestran claramente cómo la intención irónica se detecta significativamente mejor cuando los hablantes tienen acceso a codas gestuales que cuando no la tienen. El tercer estudio de esta tesis contiene tres experimentos de percepción que examinan cómo el contexto, las marcas prosódicas y las marcas gestuales contribuyen a la comprensión de la ironía verbal. En general, los resultados de los tres experimentos subrayan la importancia que los “efectos de contraste” tienen en el proceso de detección de la ironía. El primero muestra que los oyentes detectan la ironía con más precisión cuando tienen acceso a las marcas prosódicas y gestuales de manera conjunta que cuando solo tienen acceso a la información prosódica; el segundo, que la información visual resulta más convincente que la información prosódica a la hora de detectar la ironía; y, por último, el tercer experimento muestra que los oyentes emplean preferentemente las marcas gestuales por encima de las prosódicas e incluso de las contextuales a la hora de detectar la ironía. Finalmente, el cuarto estudio investiga cómo los niños desarrollan la capacidad de detectar la ironía verbal a través de las marcas prosódicas y gestuales, y los resultados muestran que las marcas multimodales facilitan la detección de la ironía en niños desde los 5 años de edad. En conjunto, esta tesis muestra que tanto los marcadores prosódicos como los gestuales contribuyen de manera significativa a la comprensión de la ironía verbal, guiando al oyente en la interpretación del enunciado mediante el suministro de pistas sobre las suposiciones, las emociones y las actitudes del ironizador. Siguiendo la línea de algunos estudios recientes sobre los efectos pragmáticos de la prosodia y el gesto, los resultados de los experimentos de esta tesis muestran que los marcadores audiovisuales de la ironía son potentes desencadenadores del proceso inferencial necesario para decodificar las intenciones del hablante en las interacciones comunicativas. Además, esta tesis presenta evidencia empírica de la gran incidencia que tienen las marcas multimodales —y especialmente de las gestuales— en la detección de la ironía verbal en comparación con las marcas contextuales, tanto en la población adulta como en la infantil. Este hallazgo fundamental nos lleva a afirmar que el estudio de las señales prosódicas y gestuales de la ironía debería considerarse una parte integral fundamental de cualquier explicación pragmática o psicolingüística sobre la producción y comprensión de la ironía verbal.
Aquesta tesi adopta una perspectiva integral a l'estudi de les marques audiovisuals en la ironia verbal. Els estudis pragmàtics s'han centrat principalment a investigar el paper del context discursiu en la detecció de la ironia, però se sap poc sobre el rol que juguen les marques prosòdiques i gestuals en aquest procés. La tesi inclou quatre estudis experimentals —cadascun d’ells descrit en un capítol separat— que aborden diferents preguntes de recerca i fan servir diversos dissenys experimentals. El primer és un estudi de cas sobre que analitza el discurs d’un còmic professional i mostra, en primer lloc, que els enunciats irònics presenten una major densitat de marcadors prosòdics i gestuals que els enunciats no irònics; i, en segon lloc, que els marcadors gestuals poden aparèixer temporalment alineats amb la prominència prosòdica, però també de forma independent, en el que anomenem “codes gestuals”. El segon estudi inclou dos experiments. Un de producció, dissenyat per obtenir discurs irònic espontani i els resultats del qual confirmen que en parla espontània els parlants no professionals també empren una major densitat de marcadors prosòdics i gestuals quan són irònics en comparació a quan no ho són; i, en segon lloc, un experiment de percepció sobre la contribució de les codes gestuals a la detecció de la ironia verbal, els resultats del qual demostren que la ironia es detecta millor quan els parlants tenen accés a codes gestuals que quan no en tenen. El tercer estudi presenta tres experiments de percepció que examinen com el context, les marques prosòdiques i les marques gestuals contribueixen a la comprensió de la ironia verbal. En general, els resultats dels tres experiments subratllen la importància dels efectes de contrast en el procés de detecció de la ironia. El primer experiment mostra que els oients detecten la ironia amb més precisió quan tenen accés a les marques prosòdiques i gestuals alhora, comparat amb quan només tenen accés a la informació prosòdica; el segon, que la informació visual és més poderosa que la informació prosòdica a l’hora de detectar la ironia, i, finalment, el tercer experiment mostra que els oients empren preferentment les marques gestuals per sobre de les prosòdiques o les contextuals a l’hora de detectar la ironia. Finalment, el quart estudi investiga com els infants aprenen a comprendre la ironia verbal a través de les marques prosòdiques i gestuals, i els resultats mostren que les marques multimodals faciliten la detecció de la ironia des dels 5 anys d'edat. En conjunt, aquesta tesi mostra que tant els marcadors prosòdics com els gestuals contribueixen a la comprensió de la ironia verbal, tot guiant l'oient en la interpretació de l’enunciat mitjançant el subministrament de pistes sobre els supòsits, les emocions i les actituds del parlant irònic. Seguint la línia d’estudis recents sobre els efectes pragmàtics de la prosòdia i el gest, els resultats dels experiments d’aquesta tesi mostren que els marcadors audiovisuals de la ironia són potents factors que desencadenen el procés inferencial necessari per a descodificar les intencions del parlant en les interaccions comunicatives. A més, aquesta tesi presenta evidència empírica de la gran incidència que tenen les marques multimodals —i especialment de les gestuals— en la detecció de la ironia verbal, en comparació amb les marques contextuals, tant en població adulta com en població infantil. Aquesta troballa fonamental reforça la idea que l'estudi dels aspectes prosòdics i gestuals hauria de ser una part integral fonamental de qualsevol explicació pragmàtica o psicolingüística sobre la producció i comprensió de la ironia verbal.

This study offers a pragmatic account of verbal irony, arguing that verbal irony can be best treated as a special type of conversational implicature.As the first part of the thesis, Grice's theory of conversational implicature is revised. This is done by 1)an addition to Grice's Maxim of Quality so that this maxim will be able to take presupposition into account; 2)an inclusion of the notion of mutual knowledge in Grice's framework and 3)an establishment of speakers' motivation for violating Grice's Maxims. This motivation is subsumed into three principles--the Politeness Principle (PP) (following previous writers such as R. Lakoff, Brown and Levinson), which embodies the speaker's need and want to be polite to others, the Selfishness Principle (SP), which constrains the speaker to say things that will bring him/her desirable consequences, and the Expressivity Principle (EP), by observing which the speaker will succeed in leaving more propositional and emotional impact on the hearer. Lastly, a heuristic of implicature production and understanding is offered which is believed to be more coherent and explanatory than Grice's original procedures for implicature calculation.Second, the revised theory is applied to verbal irony. Based on the heuristic of implicature production and understanding, a heuristic of irony production and understanding is provided. This heuristic demonstrates that irony is both similar to and different from ordinary conversational implicatures. It is similar in that it results from the speaker's observance of the motivating principles, and thus violation of Grice's maxims. It is different because 1)It is seen as the violation of the Maxim of Quality alone, while in ordinary conversational implicatures, any of the maxims may be violated; and 2)This violation is caused by all the three motivating principles, the PP, the SP, and the EP, whereas an ordinary conversational implicature is usually motivated by one of these three principles. Finally, this heuristic is applied to various cases of verbal irony, showing that the revised theory of conversational implicature is better than previous proposals on the subjuct.
Department of English

This dissertation examines the influence of Islamic ideology on Iranian Marxists during the 1979 revolution. The purpose of this study is to extricate the influence of Islamic culture, ideology, and terminology on Marxist organizations and on individuals who identified themselves as Marxists in Iran. This is especially of interest since in many ways Marxism and Islam are ideologically in conflict. Were Marxists aware of the influences of Islam in their behavior and ideology? To investigate the irony publications put forth by several Marxist organizations before and after the 1979 revolution were examined. A history of such influence both ideologically and contextually is depicted to demonstrate their political and cultural significance. Through the study of Marxist political organs, theoretical publication and political flyers distributed during and after the revolution, the phenomenon of Marxists converting to an Islamic ideology became clearer. Many Marxist organizations were demonstrably utilizing Islamic political ideology to organize and mobilize masses of Iranians. This study shows a historical precedence of Marxists’ usage of Islam in the political history of Iran dating back to early twentieth-century. Primary and secondary Marxist literature showed that Islam was an inescapable social and political reality for Iranian Marxists. Not only was there a common upbringing but a common enemy fostered provisional collusion between the two. The internalizing the idea of martyrdom—of Shi’a Islam—was a shared belied that united Marxists with Muslins in their attempt to effect sociopolitical change in Iran. Studying Marxist publications shows evidence that many Iranian Marxists were not conscious of using Islamic ethics and terminology since Islamic beliefs are part of the taken-for-granted world of Iranian culture. This contextual belief system, pervasive within the culture and a change of political ideology is what created the conditions for the possibility of Marxists becoming Muslims.

“Irony, Finitude and The Good Life,” examines the notion that Socrates, as he is portrayed in the Platonic dialogues, ought to be viewed and interpreted as a teacher. If this assertion is correct, then it is both appropriate and useful to look to the dialogues for instruction on how to live a philosophical life. This thesis will argue that to look at Socrates as a teacher, a figure who imparts knowledge to those around him on how to live a philosophical life, misses the very conception of the good life that Plato sought to personify when he created the character of Socrates. The proceeding discussion draws upon the work of Alexander Nehamas and Drew Hyland, offering an alternate interpretation of the Symposium. This interpretation argues that viewing Socrates as a teacher falsely idealizes the philosophical life, in turn neglecting Plato’s greater legacy for his character—a legacy in which true virtue lies in exposing the creative possibility inherent in living a philosophical life and prompting one’s own expression of a life inspired by the legacy of Socrates.

This research examines irony in photography from creative and theoretical perspectives. This body of work uses an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, drawing from literary and photographic irony, in conjunction with a practice-led research methodology. The creative project, Clint’s Last Road Trip (2014), traces the 1000 kilometre journey that my brother’s body made from his death until his cremation. It depicts the behind-the-scenes of the Western Australian regional death industry with an ironic autobiographical narrative voice inspired by that of Meursault in Albert Camus’ The Outsider (1942). The photobook that results uses the drama, the text and techniques in representation and sequencing to create an ironic tone in an otherwise sentimental and nostalgic creative work. As such, the theoretical component of this research explores Camus’ use of irony in his writings. It shows the various modes Camus works within for structuring and conveying irony, specifically through dramatic plot structure, character dialogue and writing techniques. A major outcome of this research has been the contribution to the study of irony in photography. I argue that different literary modes (dramatic irony, ironic dialogue and ironies of technique) can also be understood photographically. The exegesis and creative component concentrate mainly on documentary style photography to illustrate this position. Photographic dramatic irony occurs through revelation in multiimage sequences or through recognition in the circumstantial convergence of incongruous elements in the single image. I have also found that representational irony operates by subverting the reader’s expectations of how a particular subject should be depicted, considering all manner of photographic techniques, including lighting, colour, vantage point and lens choice. Similarly, I have observed that sequential ironies occur when a series of photographs exhibit a formal photographic language which is established and subsequently subverted. Developing Rose’s (2011) and Muecke’s (1969 & 1970) definitions of irony, the exegesis concludes that both literary and photographic irony are concerned with two messages that are constructed by contrasting outcomes (dramatic irony), statements (ironic dialogue) or formal aspects (representational or sequential techniques). Much of the irony that exists in photography takes form after the shutter has been clicked, in the layout process (including the choice to use text), or as the photographer is deciding on a camera kit. As such, it is possible to incorporate irony into any phase of photographic production.

This thesis analyzes the reasons for Socrates'
being presented as a paradoxical figure in the early dialogues of Plato. Irony as a fundamental philosophical attitude in Socratic philosophy is discussed with reference to some of the major philosophers of the history of philosophy. The thesis also suggests the possibility of seeing philosophy as an ironic activity and it traces the etymology of the concept of irony in terms of its philosophical importance.

Irony has for long been on the boundary between philosophy and arts owing to its both verbal/logical character and its aesthetic appeal. Recently, Rorty proposed irony as the main discursive attitude in a liberal society. In this study, I investigate liberal irony from a philosophical perspective. More specifically, I demonstrate that irony is representative of a certain view of subjectivity and an ethical stance, a critical tool that is of special importance in a coherence view of truth and a rhetorical form that appeals both to the rational and irrational.

Irony abounds in conversation yet little is known about the cognitive processing that enables its comprehension. Two experiments investigated irony compared to literal language comprehension, potential comprehension differences between irony as it is used in negative and positive situations, and whether individual differences in WM or propensity to use sarcastic or indirect language were related to irony comprehension. Results showed that irony was processed slower than literal statements (p < .05) and irony in negative situations received more sensible judgments than irony in positive situations (p < .05). Ironic statements that received nonsensical judgments took longer to reject than their anomalous counterparts. Individual differences were correlated with facilitated irony comprehension and increased difficulty in rejecting ironic statements. These findings suggest that an ironic interpretation is generated slower than a literal interpretation and that even when it is rejected, some activation of the meaning occurs, which is mediated by individual differences.
L'ironie abonde dans les conversations mais la façon dont elle est procédée est encore énigmatique. Deux expériences ont été menées pour comparer l'ironie au langage littérale, pour étudier les différences entre des situations positives et négatives, et pour voir si des caractéristiques individuelles sont liées à un traitement accéléré de l'ironie. Les résultats ont montrés que l'ironie est traitée plus lentement que la langage littérale (p < .05). L'ironie est perçue comme étant plus vraisemblable dans des situations négatives que positives (p < .05). Les déclarations anormales sont moins longues à rejeter que celles ironiques. L'utilisation du sarcasme et la mémoire sont corrélés à une accélération du traitement de l'ironie et une plus grande difficulté à la rejeter. Ces conclusions suggèrent qu'une interprétation ironique est activée plus lentement qu'une interprétation littérale, et que lorsqu'une déclaration est rejetée, une activation de la signification de celle-ci est arbitrée par des différences individuelles.

This thesis explores the view that many of the difficulties and apparent eccentricities of Beethoven’s Late Quartets (particularly Op. 130, 132, 133 and 135) may be understood in terms of irony, in the sense that it appears in the philosophical and aesthetic writings of the early German Romantics. A chain of influence is demonstrated between Beethoven and Friedrich Schlegel’s philosophy of Romantic irony, through significant inter-personal relationships as well as through Beethoven’s exposure to Schlegel’s written works. This connection provides a firm hermeneutic basis for considering the composer’s work in terms of irony. The A minor Quartet Op. 132 is given as an example of Beethoven’s Romantic irony, and considered in terms of the constitutive elements of Schlegel’s Romantic irony – Paradox, Parabasis and Self-consciousness. However, this thesis also demonstrates that the irony within the Late Quartets goes beyond the confines of Romantic irony. The paradoxical structures of the Cavatina and Grosse Fuge are considered as examples of “general” or “existential” irony – a form closely related to Schlegelian irony. Moreover, the replacement finale of the Op. 130 quartet is shown to constitute a striking instance of satire: a bitter ironic comment upon the musical conservatism of Beethoven’s critics. This thesis therefore explores the philosophical background and the nature of irony itself, relating all of its forms to one underlying structure and to one fundamental process. This process – “objectification” – is derived from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, and forms the theoretical basis for the structural approach of the analyses of irony within the thesis. The thesis also considers the relationship between irony and related phenomena such as wit and humour. It suggests that the differences between these concepts correspond to those between Beethoven’s Romantic irony and the wit and humour of his predecessors. Finally, the relationship between irony and ambiguity is also considered.

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate ontological relationality in literary theory and criticism by critically reflecting on modern theories of literature and by practically examining the literary texts of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and Oscar Wilde. Traditional studies of literary texts have been oriented toward interpretative or hermeneutic methodologies, focusing on an independent and individual subject in literature. Instead, I explore how relational ontology uncovers the interactive structures interposed between the author, the text, and the audience by examining the system of how the author's creative positioning provokes the reader's reaction through the text. In Chapter I, I critically inquire into modern literary theories of "irony" in Romanticism, New Criticism, and Deconstructionism to show how they tend to disregard the dynamic dimension of interactive relationships between different literary subjects. Chapter II scrutinizes Wilde's humor in An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) in order to reveal the ontological relationships triggered by a creative positioning. In chapter III, I examine Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (c. 1400) and the laughter in "The Miller's Tale" in particular, to examine the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of its interactive relationships. In Chapter IV, I explore Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Othello (1603-4), and The Winter's Tale (1609-11) so as to show how artistic positioning creatively constructs a relational system of dynamic interactions to circulate social ideals and values. In so doing, this dissertation is aimed at revealing the aesthetic values of literature and the objective scope of literary discourse rather than providing yet another analytical paradigm dependent primarily on a single literary subject. Thus, the ontological study is proposed as an alternative, yet primary, dimension of literary criticism and theoretical practice.

The strange stories of Hagar, Dinah, and Tamar unsettle the ancestral narrative in Genesis. Whereas the ancestral narrative revolves around the interests of the ancestral family, these stories deviate from the main plot and draw attention to the interests of non- ancestral characters. Interpretation traditionally domesticates the strange stories by focusing on how they may serve the purposes of the embedding ancestral narrative. This thesis, however, revives the question of their strangeness and proposes an original response: the strange stories are interludes that ironize ancestral identity. The concepts of interlude and irony lay the methodological groundwork for this thesis. Because scholarship commonly identifies the strange stories as “interludes,” this study innovates a poetics of the interlude. This poetics, which derives from the model of certain musical interludes, suggests that the interlude’s function is to develop primary thematic content. While scholarship conventionally allows the primary narrative to determine the significance of the interlude, this poetics illumines how the interlude may determine aspects of the primary narrative. A hermeneutics of irony, in turn, offers a persuasive account of how an interlude may develop primary thematic material. This study bases its hermeneutics on the idea that irony consists in quoting a prior proposition and implying a negative judgment toward it. When the interludes invoke central ancestral motifs, they may mean something different—even contrary—to what was meant before. A poetics of the interlude and a hermeneutics of irony drive this study’s close readings of the strange stories. The close readings demonstrate how the interludes ironize key themes of ancestral identity: the ancestral-divine relationship, ancestral relations to the land and its inhabitants, and ancestral self-identity. Each interlude subverts the conventionally exclusive formulation of an ancestral theme and shows that, while ancestral identity may be contained in the ancestral family, it is not contained by it.

This thesis examines a representative range of Graham Greene‟s works, mostly novels published between 1930 and 1982, and some of his plays and film scripts, with the aim to resituate Greene within the cultural and literary landscape of the twentieth century. It complements contemporary Greeneian scholarship with an analysis of two self-suppressed and generally unavailable novels The Name of Action (1930) and Rumour at Nightfall (1932), as well as Greene‟s plays The Living Room (1953), The Potting Shed (1957) and Carving a Statue (1964, 1970) and the film treatment No Man’s Land (1950), which are currently outside mainstream critical studies. The focus on tragic irony enables a reappraisal of Greene‟s various responses to some spiritual and intellectual crises of the twentieth century, including his critical examination of Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis, Marxism, Catholic theology and philosophical existentialism, represented by Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Martin Buber, as well as earlier pre-existentialist thinkers, including Søren Kierkegaard and Miguel de Unamuno. The study reveals Greene‟s nuanced affinity with literary modernism, especially of the variety developed by Joseph Conrad and Henry James, and postmodernism, specifically, his experimentation with and ultimate rejection of the typical modernist textual strategies. In his later fiction, these were combined with pervasive intertextuality and postmodernist literary techniques, which nevertheless do not mitigate an essentially modernist tragic-ironic vision, centered on epistemological rather than ontological issues and a binary representation of reality. The thesis outlines Greene‟s idiosyncratic model of a flawed hero, within which an ordinary aheroic protagonist acquires a heroic stature in the discourse of existentialist philosophy or Catholic theology. It also highlights two distinctive textual models, an intertextual „literary thriller‟ and a variation of a Catholic novel, which represent Greene‟s significant contribution to contemporary literature that calls for a more comprehensive integration of his fiction into the twentieth-century literary canon.

In my study on Barbara Pym's novels, the focus is first on the two basic ironies in love-marriage relations: irony of dilemma in which marriage is seen as the end of romantic love; and irony of situation in which excellent but plain-looking women are deprived of the chance to express their basic need for love. Chapter I of this study introduces the major themes and ironies in Pym's novels and the nature and functions of her irony. The following six chapters examine the two major ironies in six of Pym's twelve novels: Some Tame Gazelle, Excellent Women, Jane and Prudence, Less Than Angels, A Glass of Blessings, and A Few Green Leaves. While discussing the uniqueness of each of Pym's heroines, I also explore how Pym underwent changes in her views of love and marriage and how she attempted to keep a balance between her romanticism and her sense of irony. Pym's other six novels are discussed in Chapter VIII, the concluding chapter.

The following thesis outlines Hegel’s interpretation of Socrates in order to prove that as a negative dialectician, Socrates constitutes both a world historic personality who met a fate (Schicksal) which was tragic and practiced a philosophy which was tragically ironic. In this undertaking, Hegel’s Theory of Tragedy takes central importance which defines tragedy as two equally justified opposing forces which clash and destroy one another. This Theory of Tragedy is extended to show that through Socrates’ absolutely free will he brought himself to a tragic clash with the Athenian Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit), the Sophists’ arbitrary will, and the phenomenological will of uneducated Athenians. This clash is described in terms of a Hegelian Tragedy within which both Socrates and Athens were right and just in their actions against one another, but in the end were destroyed through those actions. His Method and Dialectic is then argued represent a negative dialectic which through the negation of negativity becomes positive as a midwifery of the consciousness. Next, because his Method and Dialectic begin in negativity and end in positivity, Socratic Elenchus is argued to not be representative of what has been termed “the Socratic Irony,” but instead only the negative moment of the Socratic Method. Finally, the Socratic Irony which Hegel argues is representative of both Socratic Philosophy and world history is defined as a Tragic Irony which sublates the finite consciousness of the phenomenological will, and the Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit), and the infinite arbitrary will of the Sophists in order to become a trans-subjective absolutely free will which becomes infinite itself like the Sophists’ will through reflection on the Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit).

The last in a long line of Mesoamerican cultures, the Aztecs massed in the metropolis of Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco and neighboring cities in the Valley of Mexico, with bureaucracies and royal houses as cosmopolitan as those of their eventual conquerors, the Spaniards. In North America, however, tribal cultures developed organizations based not on the state, but on kin and family relations. The basis of this paper is a comparison of the values fostered by tribalism and those propounded by bureaucracy, whether Mexican or European or even Ming Chinese. The method employed is that of a series of six short pieces of original fiction (one for each of the cardinal points, one for Father Sky, and one for Mother Earth), based on research into the world-views of North American Indian cultures and tribal experiences, and which may be construed as a critique of the notion of the universality of human values.

In this thesis, the continuing relevance of the profession of librarianship in the digital age is explored and assessed. After defining the library as information itself, the thesis establishes that electronic formats replacing printed matter is not an indication of libraries becoming extinct. Further, various aspects of the profession of librarianship—including library ethics, information extraction skills, and information literacy instruction—are discussed. Additionally, the potential for librarians to play an important role in a largely “jobless” society (as forecast by some experts and scholars as well as in a recent Oxford University study) is evaluated. Finally, a proposal is made for librarians to actively contribute to a more participatory and deliberative democracy by using the Internet to facilitate information access in the public sphere.

Останнім часом спостерігається зростання інтересу до вивчення особливостей функціонування іронії в художньому творі. Феномен іронії, без сумніву, є проявом різноманіття соціальних відносин. Іронічне бачення життя стало на сьогоднішній день однією з основних властивостей міжособистісного спілкування. При цитуванні документа, використовуйте посилання http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/34050

Frith's (1992) cognitive neuropsychological model of schizophrenia proposed that the symptoms characteristic of that disorder can be accounted for in terms of differing degrees of theory of mind impairment. There is a large body of evidence indicating that individuals with schizophrenia perform poorly on tasks that are hypothesised to require a functioning theory of mind, and this review aims to introduce the main findings from these studies. Following consideration of thirty-four relevant papers, this review finds that the only unequivocal finding is that individuals with schizophrenia do show impaired theory of mind. How this impairment relates to schizophrenic symptomatology as predicted by Frith's model is far less certain, and several methodological limitations are discussed that could account for this uncertainty, before a new development in the field is introduced: the use of the schizotypy paradigm to test the predictions of Frith's theory in non-clinical samples. The schizotypy paradigm has been employed in three studies investigating ToM performance in healthy individuals to date (Langdon and Coltheart, 1999 Langdon and Coltheart, 2004 Pickup, 2006), and the findings from these studies show that schizotypal traits do influence ToM performance. These studies are reviewed, and future directions for research are recommended.

This dissertation examines the christological thought of Thomas Todhunter Shields between the years 1894 to 1930, along with its influence on his view of the Bible and of the Christian's role within his/her culture.
T. T. Shields was one of the most prominent Fundamentalist leaders in the 1920's. While a popularizer rather than an academic his thought merits study due to his influence within Fundamentalism and his reputation for being one of the more "thoughtful" of Fundamentalists.
Shields' christology was monophysitic and docetic leading, in time, to a full blown christo-monism which effectively removed Christ from his mediatorial role. In place of Christ, Shields virtually substituted the Bible; and the characteristics that he had attributed to the Christ (viz., transcendence of error and 'the human element') he now attributed to the Scriptures. Shields' christology also resulted in a truncation of his conception the church, particularly with respect to the question of Christian mission.

This thesis presents a theory of structural irony gleaned from the irony theorised and performed in the texts of thinkers whose works operate on the border of the (non)propositional: Plato, Friedrich Schlegel, Maurice Blanchot, Paul de Man, Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. While focusing on the irony performed in the texts of Jacques Derrida, and using his engagements with these thinkers as a frame, this is not a theory of “Derridean” irony, but an irony (primarily) elaborated through a deconstructive approach and vocabulary. Structural irony is seen to take the form of the transgressive step/counter-step of parabasis and the non-hierarchical disorder of parataxis. It is an anacoluthic force/weakness, and exhibits the conjunctive/disjunctive trait of hyphenation. It is neither of cynical, aesthetic distance nor humorous, parodic engagement, but is a productive movement of (impossible) negotiation between terms. Irony is an expression of the beyond, within, and this reworking of borders and limits is performed in the fragment/aphorism. The (ir)responsible step taken in Derrida’s texts is understood as a mode of structural irony, and it is proposed that the stylistic changes that occurred in Derrida’s “later” texts were in part due to the autoimmunity caused by an overexposure to the “laws of the interview”. Throughout the thesis styles that manipulate the unmasterable excesses of irony are investigated, and each chapter ends with a reading of one of Derrida’s more “literary” or “performative” texts, while recognising and playing with the falsity of such generic makers or divisions. Inscribing Derrida within a tradition of thinkers of the non-thetic both extends readings of that tradition and of irony itself, while affording a valuable way of approaching the “structures” within Derrida’s texts. Irony is not presented as the transcendental signifier of deconstruction, but as a profitable way of understanding deconstruction and its relation to other writers.

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
Partindo da discussão sobre o que se entende por poesia contemporânea, passando pelos possíveis recortes geracionais da segunda metade do século passado até a atualidade, esta dissertação analisa a obra de duas jovens poetas contemporâneas, Angélica Freitas e Alice Sant Anna, cujos livros de estreia foram publicados no século XXI.
On the basis of the discussion concerning what is meant by contemporary poetry and what counts as a generation in the period from the mid twentieth century to the present, this thesis examines the work of two contemporary young women poets, Angélica Freitas and Alice Sant Anna, who published their first books in the twenty-first century.

This thesis explores and evaluates the work of James Joyce using the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche. It does so not only by examining Joyce's knowledge of Nietzsche's writings, but also through demonstrating how effectively they can illuminate Joyce's themes and techniques, and aid in a general reconceptualisation of his literary project. My analysis draws on several of Nietzsche's key concepts - perspectivism, ressentiment, the will to power - and applies them to Joyce's work. The main idea I use however is the will to truth. I argue that Joyce's primary concern as an artist was the depiction of what he saw as the truth of contemporary existence, in Dublin and more generally. This aim determines his technē, the origin and form of his work of art. Various manifestations of irony, a key element of Joyce's technique, help illustrate the importance of this will to truth. This understanding of his work eliminates the false division between form and content and through an emphasis on Joyce's artistry and philosophy, rather than the historical context in which he wrote (that is, on the author rather than the man), allows for a truly critical assessment. The five chapters that follow my introduction are chronologically ordered. They examine the early works, Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and especially Ulysses, in considerable detail and from various angles. Though careful to respect the individuality of each, my analyses find a common thread of realism uniting the three major works of prose fiction; beginning with the French naturalism of the short stories, moving on to a new development of perspectival irony and a unique mode of allegory in his first novel, and ending in what Joyce called 'the new realism' of his epic. My study then explains how and why realism is problematised in the later chapters of Ulysses as the will to truth comes to question itself. The thesis concludes with an assessment of Finnegans Wake, considering how it marks a radical departure from Joyce's earlier practice, and why I regard it a failure.

In the corpus of Chekhov's prose there is a perceptible evolution in his use of irony. This study involves an examination of the use of irony in the initial, middle and final phases of his artistic career. It will demonstrate that in the initial phase, Chekhov's use of irony was direct and overt; in the middle phase, it was more deliberate and covert; and in the final phase, it was subdued, more transparent and transcendent. Selected stories taken from all three periods will illustrate this evolution.

Although the notion of irony occurs frequently in the criticism of Joseph Conrad's works, little effort has been made to discuss the various possibilities for different types of irony and their manifestations in the literature. This thesis is a textual examination of the different types of irony in the major fiction of Conrad. In the critical accounts of Conrad's irony, the notion of irony is usually synonymous with a straightforward form like satire with an accompanying contention of narratorial moral presupposition. However, in this thesis, three types of irony are explored: specific, general, Romantic (D.C. Muecke's terms). The irony issues from the sustained organising structures of the works - character interrelationships, dramatic irony, retrospective narratives, inconsistent narrators - and the verbal irony of the narrators in their act of narrating. The essential element of irony is a juxtaposition of incongruous elements - in either its structural or verbal form - which indicates that the ostensible meaning of a particular context is in need of dismantling and reconstruction. Accordingly, detecting irony constitutes a search for incongruity, paradox, contradiction, or ambivalence, and then determining to what extent the narrator has control over the linguistic duality. The three types of irony mentioned above have distinct functions: specific ironists admonish, general ironists acknowledge that a given character is in a predicament that deserves some sympathy, and Romantic ironists (whose source is the aphoristic thought of the German Romantic, Friedrich Schlegel) see all existence as illusory and seek a multiplicity of intellectual perspectives, eventually establishing the irony as dialectical. It becomes clear that the narrators, the architects of the irony, consistently explore the viability of an idealised identity in a harsh and uncompromising reality, external to the transmutations of an idealising imagination. Further scrutiny shows that the best way of exploring idealism in Conrad is through acknowledging the presence of a form of quixotism, by which several of Conrad's characters seek aggrandisement through a powerfully idealised notion of their identity, which fuels their sense of adventure even to the point of bizarre severance from their surrounding physical or social environment. Quixotism in Conrad's fiction does not deal only with a parodied chivalry; the notion is extended to apply more generally to the obsessive psychological commitment to an ideal. Although the notion of quixotism has been noted before in Conrad's fiction, it has usually carried with it pejorative connotations. Examination of the fiction indicates that while parody, as a form of specific irony, is linked with quixotism, the irony of quixotism at its most complex level becomes a sophisticated narratorial scrutiny of the various illusions by which characters fashion their identities. This type of irony generates in Marlow's two early narratives, Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, an incorrigible self-reflectiveness, which extends even to Marlow's self-consciousness in his role of narrator and instigates the scrutiny of the efficacy of language to convey effectively the complexity of experience. The early fiction is examined briefly, and it is shown that the essential ingredients of Marlow's irony are already present in the fiction, but several factors mitigate against the construction of elaborate ironic mechanisms. The rest of the fiction discussed is seen in contrast to the irony of Marlow's two early narratives, and it is shown that the fiction after these two novels, with the exception of The Secret Agent, does not sustain the same complex ironic structures.

Although Edith Wharton is finally recognized as a major American novelist, her remarkable canon of short stories has been largely ignored. Such neglect is regrettable, for the diversity of the stories suggests that some common perceptions of Wharton may well be misconceptions: that her works are masterpieces of technique, but not content; that her inconsistency reflects an instability; that her works are pervaded with a repressing pessimism. The short stories evoke a reconsideration of these prevailing attitudes about Wharton and her art.The stories reinforce the critics' evaluation of Edith Wharton as a master of rhetorical strategy. She employs verbal irony and situational irony. She also focuses closely on the ironies in American society, particularly those associated with the upper class, with marriage, and with art. But Wharton's conscious and pervasive use of irony in the stories points to the fact that she is a philosopher of irony as well.The philosophy of irony -- a philosophy of constant revisionism, questioning, and subjunctivity, of the rejection of absolutes, and of the celebration of paradox and ambivalence -- is one which reconciles many of the conflicts both in Wharton's short stories and in her life. It accounts for Wharton's insistence in her letters and her autobiography of the possibilities of life and for the optimism and hope that are clearly demonstrated in the stories. Despite the conclusions that have traditionally been drawn by critics who have focused on Wharton the novelist, the stories reinforce what the life has also suggested: that Edith Wharton actually achieved transcendence, hope, and joy.Chapter Five of this study reevaluates Ethan Frome, often considered Wharton's most pessimistic novel, in light of her philosophic irony. It challenges the commonly held notion that Ethan Frome is only a technical success, assuming the position that technique and vision cannot be separated. It finds in the ambivalence of the book an acknowledgment of possibility -- tones of optimism, triumph, and celebration. Furthermore, this dissertation suggests that a second look, with an eye toward Wharton's philosophy of irony as well as her techniques of irony, is warranted for each of the novels.
Department of English

This essay investigates the prospect of Romantic Irony’s potential resurgence in contemporary poetics and discusses its relevance and likeness with metamodernism. The internet has by now not only seeped into, but fully permeated, the process of literary production and distribution. The effect of this has been the birth of a new kind of poetic discourse which can broadly be called metamodernism, The New Sincerity or Alt-lit. This movement is characterized by its self-reflexive metacommentary, fragmentary nature and an oscillation between of irony and sincerity. Vermeulen and Akker, among others, have hinted at metamodernism’s relation to Romanticism, but research into the specifics of its tendency towards Romantic Irony is scarce. By viewing the writings of Steve Roggenbuck (a central figure in the new poetic movement), alongside the philosophy of Friedrich Schlegel, I propose a comparative framework for discussion of sincerity, irony and the instrumentalization of contemporary metamodernist writing. I demonstrate that Roggenbuck’s writing displays narratological, tropological and thematic tendencies commonly associated with both Romantic Irony and metamodernism. Apart from broader structural comparison, I attempt a comparative analysis between Roggenbuck’s poetry (2010-2015) and Thomas Carlyle’s novel “Sartor Resartus” (1833-1834) in order to provide a visualisation of the rhetorical and narratological strategies of Romantic Irony. I aim to frame Romantic Irony as a sensibility, or mode of discourse - rather than a strict system of thought - which may still be at work today. In extension, the sensibilities of Romantic Irony may shed further light into the philosophical potential of the seemingly incomprehensible and contradictory tendencies of metamodernism. By ironicizing its poetic form, literary ambition and desire for sincerity in a post-postmodern era, Roggenbuck’s poetry celebrates ambiguity and literary failure, ultimately framing irony as a constructive and potentially democratic operation.