Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Response Post


Meagan says in her blog
“So I have to say Grandison’s technique for escape was amazing. Throughout the entire story you get this very strong feel that Grandison is devoted to his master and that he never has any intention of                                 leaving. Even though Dick has been diligently trying to get rid of him.”

This brought up a question.  How many layers can irony have?  It seems pretty endless when one considers the reader’s mind or the reader’s life.  I noticed many layers of irony in this story.  And I noticed this kind of ironic back and forth.  I wonder if one can find a lot more irony by looking at the author’s life. 

I was wondering. . .

Irony seems to be extremely culturally bound.  What I mean is that in order to have ones expectation reversed one needs expectations.  The expectations often come from culture.  I think there must also be things that are ironic in a global or human sense as well.

New Question

How does Ironic humor cross cultures?  Does it have to be dealing with fundamentally human issues?  

1 comment:

  1. This is an interesting question. There's a novel called "Prague" that wrestles with the role of irony in American culture versus other cultures.

    One of the central arguments of the novel is that the young, American ex-pats are so steeped in irony that their words (and their actions, their lives even) become essentially meaningless, and that irony is a sort of cultural luxury for dominant cultures.

    It's not a spectacular novel, but it's interesting:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_(novel)

    ReplyDelete

Poets To Come --- By Walt Whitman


POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!

Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,

But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than

before known,



Arouse! for you must justify me.

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,

I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the

darkness.



I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a

casual look upon you and then averts his face,

Leaving it to you to prove and define it,

Expecting the main things from you.

Followers