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Summary Of Irony By Claire Dolebrook

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The first chapter of Irony by Claire Colebrook provided important historical background, laid out complexities and problems, and gave us ways to discern the concept of irony. Her historical background of irony dates all the way back to ancient philosophers, Socrates and Aristophanes. Irony first began as eironeia, then later ironia. Eironeia was referred to as “lying rather than complex dissimulation” which changed in political interaction. Ironia was a trope or figure of speech, an artful way of using language. Irony was popular and remains popular in the political context due to the ability to play with language. Eironia began to change because an act of obviously recognizable dissimulation was employed. Colebrook states that Socrates liked to challenge people that presented information to him with irony. He would pretend to be ignorant and ask for information to shut down his opponent with better knowledge on the subject. …show more content…

Later on in the chapter Colebrook addresses: how do we know that she isn’t being ironic? This had been on the back of my mind but when she said it on paper in her book on irony, I didn’t know how to perceive it. Is she sincere or does she mean what she isn’t

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