Gar Lipow wrote:
> It seems to me that the hard part is separating irony from sarcasm.
> Identifying irony/sarcasm requires only a slight modification of the
> definition given before Gar's definition:
Gar recognizes that irony presents a problem, not an easy solution to other problems. Good. I will respond to some of the details of his post later. Now I only want to clear up a minor misconception, and perhaps also move the discussion a bit forward.
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> Carrol seems to think that Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is a
> counter-example. Yet I don't think you can argue that swift literally
> means that killing and eating babies is a humane and reasonable
> proposal. Some of the sentences "Proposal", the facts about how
> harshly the Irish are treated are meant to be taken literally.
Of course I agree with Gar. I merely wanted to throw a bit of sand in the gears by suggesting that if we *did* take it as Swift's real view, we would still reach the same conclusions about Ireland, we would simply blame Swift rather than his Projector (as the literal voice is usually called) for failing to see the significance of his own observations, for taking naively at face value the actions of the Irish landlords and the English, and for even failing to notice that in the section refuting contrary proposals he has given very good proposals for Ireland. *We* could stll draw the same moral, political, and intellectual conclusions from such a hypothetical straight piece as we draw from the ironic piece that most of us read. I say most of us because some undergraduates still see Swift as a monster even after having the piece explained to them. (Even the more sophisticated undergraduates I taught at Michigan in the '50s as well as ISU students.)
I agree with Gar that the distinction between irony and sarcasm is a crucial one, though I don't think it the only problem that irony presents. And he is probably correct in arguing that paraphraseability is not an adequate distinguishing mark.
A crucial point with "A Modest Proposal" (as with most of Swift's ironic works) is that it is hard to tell whether the ultimate target of the irony is the explicit subject (Ireland) or the intellectual stance represented by the ironic persona. The *Travels* has a good many targets, but it is at least arguable (I would not agree, but it is arguable) that its primary target is a certain sort of gullibility, as illustrated by Gulliver in various ways and by that class of readers who take Gulliver as a consistent character.
Carrol