/lit/ - Literature

>>19634889
>It seems that if a work lacks irony, it also lacks depth.
example?

>>19634889
It's a cheap way to add a dimension to the narrator, mc or author.

>>19634895
I can't give any. I was just thinking how a scene like the Grand inquisitor for instance would have lost almost all of its power if it wasn't so ironical. Don Quixote also came to mind. Moby Dick as well, and Herman's other work, Typee, was hard for me to enjoy until I saw the irony of it in Tommo's incessant apologies for a race of cannibals.

>>19634889
Irony is fundamental to humor, and really half of irony is just cynicism. any good entertainment is about perspective and novelty so assessing what something is before creating a permutation of it is essentially the process of making a book, because as many people say, every work of art is the sum of its influences

>>19634910
Wrong.

>At the end of the path of lost irony is a final inch, beyond which literary value will be irrecoverable. Irony is only a metaphor, and the irony of one literary age can rarely be the irony of another, yet without the renaissance of an ironic sense more than what we once called imaginative literature will be lost.
Bloom.

Because modern art and society is obsessed with alienation, meaninglessness, and existentialism. Irony fits very well with this trend so you think it gives a work depth.

>>19634993
I'm pretty sure it gives literature depth in spite of the zeitgeist. I mean, King Lear, Hamlet? Maybe existentialism became popular because of its irony, not irony because of its compatibility with existentialism.

>>19634993
>Because modern art and society is obsessed with alienation, meaninglessness, and existentialism
Not since like the 90s but ok

>>19635008
I don’t mean to say that irony doesn’t have its place but that in the 20th century it became more and more popular. Earlier works didn’t rely on irony as the source of their depth, it was just another tool. Also you have to consider that many of the historical works that retained their popularity where ones that fit with the current themes.

>>19635012
That’s why I said modern. Not many people here read 21st century literature

>>19634993
De Chirico produced a statement in itself. Dreamlike symbols and signs are the realm of poetry and you should have posted a Modigliani if you wanted to make a smug point about modernism.

>>19635076
>Earlier works didn't rely on irony as the source of their depth
What was their tool usually?

>>19635153
Well it depends on the work and the message it tries to convey. The symposium and paradise lost both have a lot of depth but it’s not because they make great use of irony. An interesting philosophical message or characters with a unique perspective can bring depth to a work.

>>19635153
The juxtaposition betwixt comedy and tragedy, both true.

>>19634934
Irony literally has no substance. It's just a rejection. It doesn't in itself say why it's rejecting something. You can attempt to piece something together contingently but it still never actually points to it.
I use irony on 4chan a lot but in writing I never do because it means nothing. It's a cheap trick, it's like atheism.

>>19635153
>>19635203
They used metaphors and irony is only a metaphor. It is metaphors that grab us, not simply irony.