‘Tragic irony’ has become a common term and yet it still carries many unresolved questions. What exactly is it? Why did the Greeks never coin a term for it, despite it being a key element of drama? Why are some tragedies more ironic than others? How is tragic irony embedded in the ongoing tragic interaction? Are there distribution patterns in tragic irony? Although an encompassing definition of irony is still missing,Footnote 1 this article addresses these questions through examples from Euripides (plus Rhesus), with a view to broadening our understanding of the stylistics, language and characterization of Greek tragedy.
1. TYPES OF (NON-TRAGIC) IRONY
One of the main difficulties in studying irony is that the term works in more than one dimension and is used in more than one sense. It is therefore hard to provide a single comprehensive definition that accounts for every kind. Attardo, following Kreuz and Roberts, distinguishes between four types of irony:Footnote 2 verbal irony, situational irony (also known as irony of fate), Socratic irony and dramatic irony. This paper focusses on dramatic or tragic irony in Euripides. Before delving into this question, however, aspects of the other kinds of irony need to be highlighted.
Colston distinguishes between verbal irony and situational irony. Unlike verbal irony, most cases of situational irony are accidental: the recipient interprets something as ironic even if it is not intended.Footnote 3 It might be considered ironic, for example, that a financial planner who helps people manage their money has himself gone broke because of careless management of his own money. This is what Muecke labels as observable irony or the irony of the robber robbed.Footnote 4 Situational irony is then close to paradoxical situations,Footnote 5 where there is no ironist and hence no ironic pretence. Booth speaks of ironies of event or ironies of fate.Footnote 6
According to Burgers and Steen, verbal irony is ‘an utterance with a literal evaluation that is implicitly contrary to its intended evaluation’,Footnote 7 with sarcasm on a continuum in decoding irony relying on the speaker’s intentions.Footnote 8 Leech prefers to speak of ‘conversational irony’ versus other types of non-verbal irony (for example, tragic irony), as he sees some ambiguity in the term verbal irony in that it still can refer to rhetorical tropes.Footnote 9 Rosenmeyer speaks of ‘forensic irony’, probably also alluding to verbal irony, stating that ‘linguists and speech-act theorists are concerned exclusively with this type of irony’.Footnote 10 Attardo’s theory of irony, in turn, is formulated as any expression (i) contextually inappropriate and (ii), at the same time, relevant, that is issued with the intention of being perceived as (i) and (ii).Footnote 11 Alba Juez sees ‘inferred contradiction as a permanent, distinguishing feature and trigger of verbal irony’.Footnote 12 An example of verbal irony in our corpus is found in Euripides’ Andromache 245, where Hermione addresses Andromache with the words: ‘clever, you are so clever; but, still, you are to die’ (σοφὴ σοφὴ σύ· κατθανεῖν δ’ ὅμως σε δεῖ). Hermione does not intend to praise Andromache at all; she is being ironic. The asyndetic repetition of the adjective reinforces the ironic reading.
Burgers and Steen advance a three-dimensional model for analysing verbal irony akin to the model applied for the study of metaphor.Footnote 13 Verbal irony can be read in the dimension of language, thought and communication. Irony in the dimension of language focusses on irony markers like tag questions and interjections.Footnote 14 Ironic utterances may well take place without irony markers, but they might be harder to decode depending on the context.Footnote 15
Understanding irony in the dimension of thought helps us to go beyond the traditional definition of irony as ‘saying the opposite of what you mean’.Footnote 16 For instance, to use the ironic expression Oh Tuscany in May! when it is raining is not a matter of saying the opposite of what one means, but a contrast between expectations and reality.Footnote 17 It is, then, a ‘reversal of evaluation at the level of thought (rather than that of language)’.Footnote 18
Lastly, irony in the dimension of communication addresses the degree of conventionalization of a number of ironic expressions. Thus there are ironic expressions that can be cognitively easier or more difficult to interpret. Most cases of irony are not formally predictable, except for conventional ironies and default ironic expressions, in which the intended meaning is automatic. In such cases, the context is less significant when decoding the irony, as is the need to infer from the propositional meaning in the first place. Examples include the following:Footnote 19 wise guy, smart aleck, a bright spark, tell me about it, a likely story, where little context is needed for the native speaker to perceive it as ironic by default. In these examples ‘recipients can immediately come to the intended meaning without having to pay attention to the propositional meaning of the irony’. Likewise, Leech addresses the pragmaticalization of irony, illustrated by the following pair of examples:Footnote 20
While (i) could be ironic or not depending on the context, (ii) is specialized for an ironic interpretation. A difference between metaphor and irony is that metaphor tends to become conventionalized more frequently by default.Footnote 21 On the contrary, irony still falls between the propositional and the intended meaning. The higher the degree of conventionalization, the lesser the cognitive effort. Irony chains, that is, ironic utterances that follow one after another are also less cognitively demanding.Footnote 22
In the following Section, we will address tragic irony, which is not exactly verbal irony but is conveyed through verbal means.
2. A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR DEFINING TRAGIC IRONY
As Sedgewick acknowledged, it is striking that the Greeks had no words to describe ‘Sophoclean’ irony or tragic irony,Footnote 23 especially when it is more pervasive in Greek drama than everywhere else. Currently, tragic irony often refers to different phenomena. For instance, an entire book by Vellacott understands ironic drama as everything that prompts an ironic (at times sarcastic) reading, a reading that reveals Euripides’ own thinking, allegedly hidden behind his characters’ speeches and the plot itself. According to Vellacott, there we uncover a critical and transgressive authorial voice.Footnote 24
Rutherford also acknowledges cases in which metatextuality has been included under the umbrella of tragic irony.Footnote 25 Some examples thereby listed are the allusions to a previous author, as in the first line of Aeschylus’ Persae, which is almost identical to the opening of Phrynichus’ Phoenissae; references to the Athenian world, such as aetiologies of its institutions; prologues addressed to the audience, and allusions to dramatic conventions. An example of the latter can be found in Euripides’ Electra 759, where Electra oddly anticipates the arrival of the messenger. In Iphigenia at Aulis, for instance, there could be metatextual irony present if later stages of the myth are referred to. Thus at certain points (1192–3; 1453–7) the ill-fated aftermath between Clytemnestra, Agamemnon and Orestes could be inferred; unfortunately, this is difficult to confirm since the ending of IA is textually uncertain. Be that as it may, metatextual or intertextual references as such might pose a notion of tragic irony that is too broad. Tragic irony as I propose it is far from metatextuality in those terms. Neither does it pursue double or hidden meanings, revealing the author’s stance towards history, politics or religion.
Rosenmeyer has addressed the issue of tragic irony in most detail, providing a typology.Footnote 26 The best summary is given in Lowe’s response:
Forensic ironies will tend to be seen as originating with the speaker; blind and structural ironies with a controlling teleology, a god or fate, within the fictional world; Fiktionsironie with an outside author; while postmodern, transcendental ironies will have their point of origin in the wider world of language, signs, and ideas in which author and audience are embedded.Footnote 27
His typology is not however accompanied by a clear definition of tragic irony or its different types. Likewise, at times Rosenmeyer’s classification is not always sufficiently clear, since the subtypes of tragic irony are merged with verbal irony, paradoxical outcomes, authorial voice, Socratic irony, ambiguity and metatextuality. Surprisingly enough, even pieces of meta-theatre (Shakespeare, The Tempest, iv.i.35–42) or breaking the fourth wall enter the category of tragic irony.Footnote 28 In Lowe’s words, ‘the degree of blurring is high’.Footnote 29 Perhaps the problem is that Rosenmeyer’s proposed classificatory criteria are too broad, namely, the degree of simulation or dissimulation:
In each case, to evaluate the force of the irony, or to ask whether the case merits the label of irony at all, we ought to ponder the presence and degree of simulation or dissimulation, the kind of wit perceived, the victimization and hurt—who is that is hurt?—and the stages and levels of catching-on.Footnote 30
The common defining element in every case of tragic irony is, rather, the epistemic asymmetry between the audience/author and, at least, one character.Footnote 31 There are agents in control of the facts (the author, the audience, and at times some character), in contrast with other characters on stage, or even all characters on stage, who lack control and knowledge of the facts. In other words, I propose a definition that relies on the degree of relative knowledge among the recipients involved in the dramatic performance. This definition brings us somehow closer to the original meaning of εἰρωνεία ‘fake ignorance’, because Socratic irony also revolves around the degree of relative knowledge, its focus being thus not so much on ambiguity but on the differentiation between what someone knows and pretends to know. According to Vellacott, irony is a filter that differentiates meanings depending on the recipients.Footnote 32
As already mentioned, tragic irony is not verbal irony, but it is conveyed through verbal means. It can result from a situation but is never obviously accidental as true situational irony is, as it is ultimately controlled by the playwright. Tragic irony consists of expressions with a meaning for one or more characters that is different from the meaning for the playwright and audience.Footnote 33 Tragic irony is not only about utterances with double meaning, however; examples of situational irony,Footnote 34 like the following, are also instances of tragic irony:
The irony arises by the contrast between Ion’s intent to go beyond the bounds of Europe and all Asia in search of his mother, and the fact that his mother is just next to him.Footnote 36 The Priestess’ reaction (you will find out yourself) reinforces the ironic reading. Martin suspects these lines and describes them as a case of ‘extra dramatic irony, a diversion from the imminent recognition’.Footnote 37
Sometimes irony is present not because of an expression with a different meaning for the audience and some or all characters on stage, but rather because of different reactions to the ironic expression, for instance when a character poses a question which can be answered in one sense by the audience but it receives a different reaction on stage, as in Examples (4) and (6) below.
2.1. Total and partial irony
A further modest proposal for classifying tragic irony consists in distinguishing between partial and total irony, which could also be labelled intra-dramatic and extra-dramatic. Partial irony means that at least one character on stage has epistemic control over the situation, while the other characters on stage do not. Total irony means that no character on stage has full epistemic control over the situation, while the audience (and playwright) does have a privileged access to knowledge. All in all, partial irony affects only some of the characters involved whereas total irony affects all characters on stage. The following example is an instance of partial irony:
Example (3) is an instance of partial irony because not just the audience and playwright but also Helen knows more than Theoclymenus. As a result, her last utterance (And I wish he would go to a place I have in mind!) has a different meaning for both her and the audience from its meaning for Theoclymenus. She is lying to Theoclymenus, pretending that she has found out that Menelaus is dead. The reporter of the fake news is Menelaus himself, who in turn pretends to be a shipwrecked comrade of the “dead” Menelaus. As Kovacs notes: ‘Helen pretends to wish him, as the bearer of bad news, an evil destination. (In tragedy bearers of good news are treated as deserving reward and bearers of bad as deserving punishment.) To herself, of course, her words mean “May he get home safely”.’Footnote 39
The following example is an instance of total irony:
Example (4) is an instance of total irony because neither Menelaus nor the Old Woman has full control over the fact that there were two Helens, the true one in Egypt and the ghost taken to and then rescued from Troy. As Kannicht explains, the irony of the question in line 469 relies on the fact that Menelaus is the cause about which he asks.Footnote 41 Overall, distinguishing between partial and total irony by virtue of the epistemic asymmetry is not too difficult a task. We can find cases that are more complex, however, as in Example (5):
Here we find degrees of knowledge that indicate both partial and total irony. Creusa has more epistemic control than Ion. For her, ἀπαιδίαν has a meaning that she shares with Apollo and the audience but that is unknown to Ion, namely her rape by the god and her later abandonment of the newborn. Still, there is also extra-dramatic irony, since both Apollo and the audience know more about her apparent lack of children: her son, who was rescued by the god from the cave where he was forsaken, is just there.
Cases of partial or intra-dramatic irony are particularly interesting,Footnote 43 because they can in turn be classified depending on the role played by the character prompting the ironic situation. Controlled partial irony happens whenever the character releasing the dramatic irony is in epistemic control of the situation and therefore knows what is really happening. Unlike uncontrolled partial irony, controlled partial irony establishes unique communication between the character in control and the audience, as seen in Example (3) above.
A case of uncontrolled partial irony, that is, when a character creates irony without being aware, is given in Example (6):
In 1284, Ion utters a declarative question, that is, a sentence in an interrogative form that is not, however, a true information-seeking question. Through a polarity reversal, he actually means ‘there is nothing in common between Apollo and you’, which strikes Creusa and the audience as ironic, given that Ion himself is precisely the thing in common between Creusa and Apollo. Uncontrolled partial irony is closer to total irony than controlled partial irony because the speaker issuing it does not really know what is going on, like in cases of total irony.
Uncontrolled partial irony happens less often in Euripides (§3.1). In most cases, at least one character is aware of what is happening and establishes communication with the audience, who shares his/her knowledge, unlike the other character(s). This communication happens without breaking the fourth wall.Footnote 45 The question then becomes: how is this partial communication possible without breaking the fourth wall? How is this simultaneous dialogue incorporated into the conversation on stage? How is this conversational polyphony (§2.3) linguistically achieved? Conversation Analysis provides us with the tools to answer these questions (§3.2).
2.2. Retroactive irony
Triggers are an indispensable tool for prompting ironic reactions in the audience. They are particularly commonplace and easy to detect when a tragedy is introduced by a divinity (or ghost as in Hecuba) who explains the plot to the audience from the beginning.Footnote 46 A good example of a trigger for subsequent ironies is found in Euripides’ Hecuba 882–5, where Hecuba, through a conversation with Agamemnon, tells the audience that she is going to deceive Polymestor. When there is no trigger as such, however, the audience may only be able to detect the irony retrospectively; this is why we can also name this type of irony as ‘authorial irony’ (only the author knows) or ‘second-chance irony’ (it requires the audience to have already seen the play at least once).
To acknowledge this kind of irony raises intriguing questions about the extent to which we know how much the audience knew in advance about a particular plot. The basics of the mythical figures were known to everyone,Footnote 47 but playwrights counted on compositional freedom.Footnote 48 For instance, Heracles was known to have killed his own children, but, according to Bond,Footnote 49 the placing of the murder of the children after the labours was probably a Euripidean innovation. The plot certainly becomes more powerful, as Heracles, the redeemer of civilization and of his family, ironically ends up being their murderer. The question is, however, would the audience have known? If not, there can be retroactive irony in some of the lines (e.g. 321–5, 623–4).
Being aware of this kind of irony also raises questions about the extent to which dramatists could hope for their own plays to be performed more than once and for the same audience. We do have evidence of reperformances contemporary with the three great tragedians in various contexts, including local festivals and symposia (perhaps not of entire plays but of individual speeches and songs). The main festival of the Dionysia, however, initially admitted only new plays, and reperformances were first introduced in 386 BC.Footnote 50 In view of this, retroactive irony contemporary to the tragedians would entail an unlikely kind of reperformances since it would imply either that the same plays were performed more than once at the same festival, or that some sort of circle of Euripides’ admirers followed his productions wherever they were staged—both of which seem improbable. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there are not many clear instances of retroactive irony in Euripides, which in any case is paradoxical itself considering how popular he later became.Footnote 51
2.3. Degree of polyphony in tragic irony
Polyphony is a musical term that denotes ‘the simultaneous and harmonious combination of a number of individual melodic lines’.Footnote 52 We may distinguish between a purer form of irony, namely ‘polyphonic’ in contrast to less polyphonic irony. In true tragic irony there is more than one way of understanding a piece of speech, and these different interpretations occur simultaneously; this is why they are polyphonic. In the following example, Pentheus demonstrates a different understanding of what Dionysus really means:
Some questions with different possible answers according to the recipient (such as Menelaus’ τίν’ αἰτίαν σχὼν ἧς ἐπηυρόμην ἐγώ; in [4]) are less polyphonic, as are some wishes (as μὴ δρῶσ’ ἔγωγ’ ἐκεῖνον ὀφθείην κακῶς in [8]) when the audience may or may not know if they become true. This is because their recipient will react differently according to his/her degree of knowledge (which is not verbalized). One of the finest examples of non-polyphonic irony occurs in the exchange between Phaedra and the Nurse, when the latter is trying to find out what is distressing her mistress:
The Nurse asks Phaedra if she is upset perhaps because of Theseus’ misbehaviour. Phaedra’s answer becomes ironic because it is not a relevant answer for the Nurse, but it is relevant for the audience. Both Phaedra and the audience know that she is upset because of her ἁμαρτία. The answer is not polyphonic; it is a wish that the Nurse can understand as such, although not the full relevance of it at that point.
The following instances generate ironic effects, albeit in a less developed form. In addition to the paradoxical cases of (literary) situational irony described above (see Example 2), there are also some cases of mistaken characters. Characters in the wrong create some of the mildest instances of irony, because the polyphony is polar, and falls just between right and wrong. For instance, in Iphigenia in Tauris, the drama of total irony, we find many examples of ξένε or ξένοι that slightly prompt irony because the siblings are just using the wrong term of address (e.g. 579, 597, 612). When characters utter half-truths there is a milder ironic effect, such as when Creusa in Ion and Iphigenia in Iphigenia in Tauris speak the truth about themselves but in the third person.
The degree of polyphony is also diminished when the characters make explicit metacomments about how much they know or do not know. The most evident example happens in the first encounter between Agamemnon and Iphigenia in Iphigenia in Aulis. Agamemnon lets her daughter notice that he is hiding something from her, and, in turn, Iphigenia explicitly claims that she does not entirely understand what is going on (650–3). Agamemnon even makes it explicit that he does not know what to say (for example, 642–3), and that he is withholding information, as in the following example:
To make the former example easier to grasp, many scholars take the words ‘I am unable to keep silent’ (τὸ σιγᾶν οὐ σθένω, 655) as an aside.Footnote 56 This is problematic, as noted by Bain, because the δέ would be a sign that Iphigenia had also heard the words.Footnote 57 Since Agamemnon admits withholding information elsewhere (670–1; 676–7), this scene is different from the other examples of tragic irony, as the character without full access to knowledge is aware of it. We do not have a different understanding of the same words here, because Iphigenia is open about the fact that she does not understand anything and Agamemnon is letting Iphigenia in on the fact that he is withholding information from her.Footnote 58
The degree of ‘contact and discontinuity’ among characters may hinder the interpretation of tragic irony to the point that it may all depends on the staging.Footnote 59 This is the situation we face in the following instance, where possible asides are involved:
Regarding 284 and 288, we are to decide whether Creusa utters these and other similar lines to herself as asides,Footnote 61 or rather if they are examples of partial tragic irony because the referents of τινος in line 284 and τινά in line 288 are indefinite for Ion but precise for the audience and for Creusa. The problem is that Ion does not react to these lines, as Nelson remarks: ‘Ion is intended to ignore Creusa’s mysterious statements; they are for the audience’s pleasure, to keep them in mind of their superior knowledge of both Ion’s and Creusa’s past.’Footnote 62 Unfortunately, a lack of reaction in instances of tragic irony occurs too frequently,Footnote 63 and examples such as (7) are not common.
In view of all the above-described nuances, it seems plausible that the Greeks never coined a term for tragic irony themselves because it is so difficult to use the term categorically.Footnote 64 The common element is still the feeling of knowing more. Be that as it may, the model advanced here intends not so much to describe ad hoc instances, unlike Rosenmeyer’s, as to provide an instrumental tool that can be replicated, built upon and applied to other authors. It especially suits dramatic texts because it addresses aspects of characterization and how tragic irony is shaped according to the character that provokes it or who is victim of it (§3.1). Also key is its impact on conversational aspects, such as how and where the tragic irony is embedded in speech (§3.2). My criteria also allow us to distinguish irony from another type of simulation such as deception, since this is conversationally organized in a different way (§4).
As CQ’s referee noted, we should also acknowledge the limitations of my definition, especially given that irony has historically been regarded as having far-reaching implications for the understanding of tragedy. Alcestis is radically ironic in showing that the life which Admetus gains by Alcestis’ sacrifice is ultimately not worth living. Medea in her second scene with Jason (Eur. Med. 866–975) ironically adopts the pose of an irrational and emotional woman; yet there is a deeper irony in that this may in fact be what she truly is. Examples of plot-based irony such as these may be insufficiently analysed under my typology.
3. DISTRIBUTION PATTERNS OF TRAGIC IRONY
There are illuminating patterns as to why some plays are more ironic than others. First, the more episodic the play the less ironic it is. Hence, the plays with fewest or no examples of tragic irony in Euripides are Supplices, Heraclidae, Andromache, Trojan Women,Footnote 65 and Cyclops, which is not a tragedy. The greater the thematic unity, the greater the potential for developing tragic irony. Thematic unity allows the playwright to pinpoint triggers for the audience that prompt later ironies. Moreover, deception is more likely to provoke partial irony, since at least the lying character has control over the facts.Footnote 66 Anagnôrisis may prompt instances of total or partial irony. The combination of thematic unity with deception and/or anagnôrisis makes Iphigenia at Tauris, Electra, Bacchae and Ion the most ironic plays in Euripides’ works.
Phoenissae is an episodic drama and is telling about the above-described pattern because Euripides avoids ironically exploiting Menoeceus’ deception; Menoeceus reveals to the chorus that he has deceived his father after the deception has occurred (991–2) and not before, so there is no trigger into which to build partial irony.
3.1. Tragic irony and gender
According to Rutherford, female characters are mostly in control over ironic situations.Footnote 67 This is confirmed by our sampling. Out of 51 safe cases of total irony (which by definition is never controlled, since nobody knows but the audience), 30 are prompted by male characters while 17 instances are produced by female characters; the remaining 4 examples are choral.
The distribution of partial or intra-dramatic irony is the opposite. From 109 clear examples, we confirm that uncontrolled partial irony is a male feature since there are 23 examples prompted by male characters and 7 by female.Footnote 68 Uncontrolled partial irony is closer to total irony because the characters do not know the true meaning behind their words. Conversely, controlled partial irony, which is overall more frequent in Euripides, is a female feature: there are 39 examples by female characters and 18 by male characters.Footnote 69 There are only two choral instances of controlled partial irony.
These distribution patterns are not met in the case of Electra in her eponymous play. This is the main exception, as Electra is the victim of partial irony during a substantial part of the play. If we compare other recognition scenes in Euripides, in the case of Iphigenia in Tauris (788–840), the anagnôrisis happens through Pylades, who acts as a mediator by handling Iphigenia’s letter to Orestes. Although Iphigenia needs further proof lest she be deceived by the alleged foreigners under risk of death, both siblings recognize each other about the same time. In Ion it is Creusa who first realizes who Ion is and Ion who later recognizes her as his mother (1437–67). Likewise, Helen is also the first to realize who Menelaus is (Hel. 622–59). In Electra, however, Orestes knows about his sister beforehand, and it is Electra who recognizes Orestes (569–84) with the Old Servant’s help. When she asks her brother for confirmation (ἐκεῖνος εἶ σύ;, 581), Orestes provides her with the reply she expects, which is neither ἀδελφός, nor κασίγνητος nor σύγγονος, but σύμμαχος: ‘Yes, I am your only ally’ (σύμμαχός γέ σοι μόνος, 581). Later, she will present herself as the cause of the murders (αἰτία δ’ ἐγώ, 1182).
Returning to Euripidean patterns of tragic irony, then, Electra is not portrayed like other female characters such as Helen or Creusa. As Solmsen notes, her agency is greater than the Sophoclean Electra, because in Euripides, ‘the plan and preparation for the vengeance develop after the recognition’ (italics mine).Footnote 70 Indeed, it is Electra who proposes how to deal with her mother’s murder (El. 651–663). According to Tyndareus in Orestes, Electra deserves to die more than Orestes (μᾶλλον δ’ ἐκείνη σοῦ θανεῖν ἐστ’ ἀξία, 615). It is telling, with regard to Orestes, that tragic irony occurs between Electra and Hermione, but not in the interaction between male characters. Thus when Menelaus believes Helen to be dead and engages in conversation with his nephew, Orestes admits that he does not have her (1580) and does not exploit the occasion for tragic irony—the truth being that a divinity has taken Helen away and Orestes no longer has her.
On the other hand, as an exception, in Bacchae we see a male character exploiting controlled irony in Dionysus’ actions. Perhaps this is to contribute to the effeminate character of the intrusive divinity.
Age is not a parameter for this article, but it may also play a role in the manifestation of irony. This is clear in the contrast between the old Hecuba and her young daughter Polyxena. Euripides does not make Hecuba a full victim of irony. The former queen is repeatedly suspicious about the evil fate of her children already at the opening of the play. When she finds out about Polydorus’ death, she relates her suspicions to the news:
By contrast, the young Polyxena is completely ignorant yet hopeful, and thus becomes a victim of total irony when she is trying to reassure her mother (ζῇ καὶ θανούσης ὄμμα συγκλῄσει τὸ σόν, ‘[Polydorus] lives and when you die, he will shut your eyes’, 430).
Finally, tragic irony is not commonly embedded in choral odes, regardless of whether a chorus is male or female. There are more instances of total irony uttered by the chorus (but still only four) than examples of partial irony (no instances of uncontrolled partial irony and only two cases of controlled partial irony). This distribution is ironic itself, as the chorus is deemed at times to be an outward entity, and yet Euripides does not make use of it to control knowledge ironically.
3.2. Tragic irony and Conversation Analysis
Conversation Analysis (CA) as a branch of pragmatics stems from the lectures delivered by Harvey Sacks in the 1960s, edited and introduced by Jefferson and Schegloff.Footnote 72 One of the major inputs of this field of research is the realization that conversation is predictable and, just like any other dimension of human behaviour, is structurally organized. Thus, from the standpoint of CA, turns at talk-in interaction have a hierarchical organization according to which there is normally a core pair of turns (e.g. question-answer) which can in turn be pre-, insert- or post- expanded by other turns whose relevance is explained by the nuclear pair of turns. Conversation often becomes entangled, since ‘expansions are themselves typically built out of paired actions and can thus serve as the bases upon which further expansion takes place’.Footnote 73 An example of pre-expansion is the following instance from Levinson:Footnote 74
As Sidnell explains:
Charles asks whether Roger will be going to Bertrand’s party. This is hearable as leading to a request such as ‘can I get a lift with you?’ Indeed, it could be said to check on the availability of the service to be requested. Roger clearly anticipates this and, before the request is produced, produces an offer.Footnote 75
In turn, post-expansions often close the sequence when they are minimal, as in (13):Footnote 76
Despite being corpus languages, Greek and Latin represent the structures found in ongoing interaction. The following instances are examples of a pre-expansion (14), an insert-expansion (15), and a post-expansion, a minimal third-closing term (εἶεν ‘very well’) in (16):Footnote 77
Considering the underlying structure of conversation, we may ask where tragic irony fits in here. Again, we find a different distribution according to which the irony is partial or total, in other words, whether at least one character is communicating a separate meaning of his or her words with the audience, as in partial irony, or not, as in total irony. Total irony happens mostly at nuclear turns or in monologic speeches (32 instances). Recall, for instance, Example (4) where the total irony prompted by Menelaus is part of the first part of a question-answer pair. On the other hand, partial irony is placed mostly at the margins of conversation (62 instances), as in the following example:
Menelaus is lying to Theoclymenus, making him to believe that he is a shipwrecked comrade of Menelaus, that Menelaus is dead and that, as a result, they need to perform a (fake) ritual for the dead in the sea. 1267 can be understood as a reply to the former question. This reply, in turn, is also a request to Theoclymenus (sc. provide us with a ship and rowers). The conversational relevance now is that Theoclymenus responds to the request from Menelaus to provide a ship and rowers. The reply comes in 1272 after some insert-expansions. At that point of the conversation we find partial irony in 1273, because 1273 for Menelaus is an ironic way of reassuring himself. For Theoclymenus, on the other hand, Menelaus is dead and in the sea, and so these words for him mean that organizing the funeral as requested would be gratifying for the dead Menelaus. The utterance is a piece of partial irony that happens at a third-closing turn. In fact, the conversation moves on to another point in 1274.
Creon’s response to Medea is another example of partial irony. This is a case of uncontrolled partial irony and has a less polyphonic nature, but likewise in a third-closing turn, after which Creon leaves the stage:
Medea has previously asked Creon to allow her to live in Corinth, a request that Creon rejects. Medea then asks to remain one more day (to commit her hideous murder) and Creon accepts this new request, unaware of her murderous plans. Nauck, followed by Diggle, condemned 355–6, which is indeed a piece of tragic irony, while Mastronarde and Page kept it.Footnote 83 Partial tragic irony occurs mostly at the margins and end of interactions, and this supports the decision of the latter two scholars. It makes sense that partial irony is embedded in the margins of conversation, and even frequently at the closures. Otherwise, the recipient character is led to the position of having to react to it. As we have seen, at the end of §2.3, characters often ignore the hidden meaning of irony, and this affects the extent to which realistic interactions are achieved.
In view of the above-described distribution patterns, not only sententiae Footnote 84 but also tragic irony are frequent tools for closing conversational sequences and entire episodes.Footnote 85 This is a stimulating and open-ended way of closure, because it is the audience who eventually makes full sense of both irony and sententiae. The distribution patterns advanced throughout these pages may help address issues of textual criticism regarding the order of lines (Med. 929–31; Hipp. 104–7), character attribution (IT 781–2) or whether lines should be deleted, as in Example (18) and (2).
4. IRONY AND DECEPTION
Both lying and hiding the truth release tragic irony. This is because the audience and sometimes the chorus are aware of the truth, and, for this reason, some expressions have different meanings for both the deceived character(s) and the participants in the know.Footnote 86 It is more likely that deception will prompt partial irony because the lying character at least has control over the facts.
The best liars are those who use half-truths and embed true statements in lies, such as Electra to Hermione in Orestes (e.g. 1328) or Iphigenia to Thoas in Iphigenia in Tauris (e.g. 1173). By contrast, Admetus in Alcestis is a clumsy liar. When irony is not built upon a previous deception but is part of the deception itself, we do not meet the distribution patterns described above so clearly. This is because deception occurs in nuclear positions in conversation (for example, questions and answers) and in speech acts about facts (fake facts indeed).Footnote 87
Consider the following example in which Helen replies to Theoclymenus after he bid her not to go on board for fear that she might kill herself out of pity for her (allegedly) dead husband:
There is partial irony at a nuclear position in the conversation since this is Helen’s reply to Theoclymenus. As expected, it takes her several lines because she is refusing the King’s request and refusals take normally longer than acceptance. There are outright lies (in bold) mixed with ironic utterances (underlined). There is tragic irony embedded in a wish, similar to Example (3), in 1405–6, but there is also assertive tragic irony earlier in lines 1399–1402. For Theoclymenus, these lines mean that Helen is compelled to complete the funeral rites for her dead husband and that she could even die out of distress. For Helen and Menelaus (a fake shipwrecked comrade here), these lines mean that Helen must honour her husband by risking her own life trying to leave Egypt with him.
Euripides makes use of the interplay between irony and deception to achieve character reversal. There is a complex scene in Iphigenia in Aulis (1106–123) where there is irony over deceit. When Clytemnestra meets Agamemnon having already discovered the truth from one of her servants, Agamemnon believes that he is still cheating on his wife and daughter, but Clytemnestra reacts from a position of knowledge of the facts. At that point the victim of irony is Agamemnon, who believes the opposite. We find a similar scene at the end of Hecuba (953–1292), where Polymestor thinks he himself is cheating Hecuba. But she knows the true course of events, so Polymestor becomes first a victim of irony and ends up becoming Hecuba’s victim.
5. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Epistemic asymmetry is an effective feature for defining tragic irony, since there is always a different way of accessing knowledge every time dramatic irony occurs on stage. There are two kinds of tragic irony. It can arise between characters, and this is known as intra-dramatic irony or partial irony since at least one character is in the know. The other type of irony is extra-dramatic irony or total irony. In this kind of irony, the characters on stage lack full access to knowledge, which is a privilege for the audience and playwright. Partial irony is more frequent in Euripides and most instances of partial irony are controlled, that is, the character prompting irony is the one who has full access to knowledge. The most relevant difference between partial and total irony relies on the fact that in total, extra-dramatic irony there is no double communication with the audience since all characters on stage understand a piece of information in a way, while the audience grasps the same content in another sense. A striking feature of partial irony is, then, that it creates two different interactions at the same time, a sort of conversational polyphony, because through the same expression the communication between the characters is different from the communication between the character(s) with knowledge and the audience.
A third type of tragic irony is retroactive or second-chance irony. Unfortunately, safe cases of retroactive irony are at times difficult to determine, because we first need to understand how much the audience knew about a particular plot development. In any case, there are not many clear cases of second-chance irony in Euripides.
The classification of tragic irony into partial and total irony allows us to identify distinct distribution patterns, depending on whether total or partial irony is performed. Total irony is a male feature while controlled partial irony is mostly prompted by female characters. Total irony happens at core turns in a conversation while partial irony occurs at the margins of conversation (mostly at sequence or even at scene closure).
Taking these patterns into consideration impacts how we interpret characters and texts. Exceptions to the gender patterns confirm the rule and contribute towards characterization, as seen in the powerful portrayal of Electra in her eponymous play and the effeminate Dionysus in Bacchae. The age gap between Polyxena and Hecuba is also portrayed through irony (§3.1). Likewise, character reversal is achieved by the interplay between irony and deception (§4). Based on the patterns relying on Conversation Analysis, we can make decisions about textual criticism (§3.2) and asides (§2.3).
It would be enriching to expand this approach to the analysis of tragic irony in Sophocles and Aeschylus, although I have the impression that these patterns are better perceived in Euripides than in the former playwrights. This is because plays such as Oedipus Tyrannus, the paramount play of tragic irony, seems to be permeated by tragic irony to the extent that it might be impossible for irony to be detached in the ways herein proposed.Footnote 89
After discussing a formidable list of ironies, Lowe and Rosenmeyer end with a sense of hopelessness.Footnote 90 Lowe warns us that ‘the term “irony” may be nearing the end of its evolutionary span of usefulness’, following Muecke’s comparison of irony with ‘sublimity’, a popular term to earlier centuries but now become obsolete.Footnote 91 Rosenmeyer ironically suggests giving up the notion of tragic irony. In this article I hope to have counteracted Rosenmeyer’s ironic conclusion and Lowe’s nihilism. Tragic irony is not just a matter of heuristics; it is a defining tool in Greek tragedy for composing speeches, plots and characters. By achieving a better understanding of how tragic irony plays out, we can appreciate more clearly how it contributes to defining Euripides’ style.
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