What Is Irony?

I spent the whole afternoon yesterday skimming through several books of quotations in the library, trying to find some quotable quotes on the topic of Irony. Here is a collection of some of them. (For those of you who are interested in that discipline called 'History of Ideas', you may also like to note how the notion of Irony has taken different twists and turns since the Roman times to our own. You might even think of writing a semester paper on this matter.)

(A) 'It is the sacred duty of an ironist to keep the sense of wonder alive in his audience.' : Ammanius Licentius Marcellinus (13 - 67 A.D.), Roman orator

(B) 'The debauched Paris with his wiles of Irony

Entranced the unsuspecting Helen of Troy

Who blissfully unaware of his devious ploy

Never had mere words produced such misery!' : Vicentius Prudentius Tyrentius (345 - 421 A.D.), late Latin poet, this style is usually regarded by contemporary critics as cliched, sexist, forced, and degenerate

(C) 'If an ironist did not exist, I would die of boredom.' : God (eternal, but written in 500 A.D.)

(D) 'Irony is the most sinister enemy of Christianity.' : St Barnard of Bayreuth (c.9th century), Catholic saint

(E) 'Irony, c'est moi.' : Charles Romanov Battenberg-Gotha Dapsburg Hohenzollern (late 15th century), enlightened despot of the Holy Dacian Empire

(F) 'One drop of Pure Reason is enough to dispel the perfidious sophistries of a thousand ironists.' : Henri Louis Phillipe d'Alembert (1658-1724 A.D.), French rationalist who popularised Newton in France

(G) 'If an ironist did not exist, I would be forced to invent him.' : God (eternal, but written in 1835 A.D. as a reply to Voltaire)

(H) 'Oh noble Truth, where are the beauties

That scientists have seen in Thy microscope?

Better to dwell in the midst of Ironies

Than peer through a cold, cold telescope!' : William Spenser (1799 - 1878 A.D.), English Romantic poet, a vigorous critic of Charles Darwin and a close friend of Lord Tennyson

(I) 'We shall turn Irony on its head and show that it is but the reflex of humanity alienated from its socio-economic base.' : Arthur Luxembourg (1850 - 1921 A.D.), Austrian Marxist who was himself turned on his head when he became a Roman Catholic three years before his death
(J) 'If I were but an ironist, I would make man in my own image.' : God (eternal, but written in 1915 A.D. at the battle of the Somme)

(K) 'Man is not yet born, to come into being he must first overcome Woman. And this will be possible only by exercising his Will to Irony' : Friedrich Deutsche (1834 - 1920 A.D.), the first historical ironist to go on record
(L) 'The Unconscious is structured like an Irony' : Heinrich Joachim Klein (1884 - 1945 A.D.), Swiss psychoanalyst

(M) 'There are three sworn enemies of our sacred Motherland : Muslims, Communists, and Ironists' : Swadesh Chandra Mishra (1889 - 1946 A.D.), Indian freedom fighter

(N) 'Irony is the highest form of authenticity.' : Wilhelm Albert Sateer (1867 - 1958 A.D.), Algerian existentialist

(O) 'Irony is the last resort of a scoundrel.' : John Leslie Spencer (1878 - 1956 A.D.), English Prime Minister, Conservative

(P) 'An ironist is a man who is too scared to admit that he has nothing worthwhile to say. Irony is a shameful masculine conspiracy to keep the women playing the guessing game while the men are at it.' : Rosa Avila (1939 - 1994), Argentinian feminist

(Q) 'Irony is an evolutionary by-product which is utilised to dazzling effect by the male of the species to attract the female for optimising his reproductive success. Irony is nothing but a complex organisation of the genes. Give me a man's DNA, and I will tell you where his Irony is coming from in three minutes.' : Jonathan E. Wilson (1910 - ?), American sociobiologist, writer of the hugely popular The Selfish Ironist

(R) 'There are no facts in history, only ironies.' : Romain Lee-Strauss (1889 - 1978 A.D.), French poet

(S) 'If you cannot defeat them, do not think that you are stupid. You are still better than them. Yes, keep on repeating it to yourself : 'I am better than Thou'. You see, you always have the trump card : they may pulverise you, but you can still ironise them.' : Belinda Goodwoman (1920 - ?), Australian writer of self-help books

(T) 'Irony? You can't be serious? Was it something I said? Jesus Christ, you are freaking me out, you know? Did you catch the last plane to Tasmania? Oh, sorry, I forgot to recite my Om Mani Padme Om. Now isn't that ironic?' : geraldinE croakeR (1934 - ?), American postmodern critic, University of California at Irvine

(U) 'That's it! Anything I say now will be taken as irony.' : The Transparent Ironist (1976 - ?), post(-)colonial Indian in the UK