The metaphor of service may be allowed, in that satire, being the largest and most general type, includes the others. The relationship may be stated more literally by saying that irony is the form of humorous criticism which is expressed through innuendo, partly because of preference for verbal inversion, and partly in recognition of the topsy-turvydom of life. All irony is therefore satirical, though not all satire is ironical. The ironist conveys his own point of view by stating another’s, condemning by appearing to approve, or vice versa. Boisterousness and didacticism are foreign to irony and not to be feared so long as it is dominant. Perfection in its employment indicates that complete self-control which is supposed to be a patrician trait.
This does not mean, however, that ironic usage or attitude has been confined to the upper social stratum as its special prerogative. Nietzsche may indeed exclaim, “We should look upon the needs of the masses with ironic compassion: they want something which we have got—Ah!” But these compassionated masses have themselves been capable of the retort ironic, and have had also their spokesmen, from Lucian to Galsworthy. In The Cock, Lucian gives an ironic enumeration of the dangers and troubles of the rich and powerful, and displays the advantage of being poor and obscure. In The Ferry, Mycellus, the cobbler, voices an ironic lament on leaving life, and parodies the regrets of the wealthy:[171]
“Oh, dear, dear! My shoe-soles! Oh! My old boots! Oh! What will become of my rotten sandals? Alas, poor wretch that I am, I shall no longer go without food from early morning until evening, nor in winter time walk barefoot and half naked, my teeth chattering from the cold. Ah, me! Who, forsooth, is going to have my shoemaker’s knife and my awl?”
As manner of speech is but a reflection of manner of thought, it is evident that the ironist is not sufficiently accounted for as a devotee of a certain verbal device. This, on the contrary, is only an external manifestation of something more subjective and permanent,—a mood or an attitude which may enlarge into a definite interpretation of life. Of this interpretation the keynote is that Fate is ironical. In its unmitigated form this philosophy declares that there is a deviltry that misshapes our ends, construct them how we will. It is more often found, however, in a modified creed which admits that the presence of this perverse element in existence does not prove that all life is of the same piece; that the mad pranks are those of destiny’s underlings, dressed in a little brief authority, and not perpetrated by the ruler of the universe.
Such speculations lead into the realm of religion, and religion has had to provide a place in its pantheon for this spirit of disastrous caprice. There it lurks under various guises. Baal may fall asleep or go on a journey at a time most inauspicious for his followers. The behavior of the Olympians quite justifies the debate between Timocles and Damis, reported by Lucian, as to the theocratic mismanagement of the world. Setebos slays and saves with an eye single to the bewilderment of the human puppets. The presiding goddess in The House of Fame rewards and punishes with a similar unaccountability. “The gods,” says Smollett[172] “not yet tired with sporting with the farce of human government, were still resolved to show by what inconsiderable springs a mighty empire may be moved.” Sport is a need also of the President of the Immortals, and where so agreeably found as in undermining the patient structure of poor little Tess, and bringing it to the ground with a splendid crash?
The essence of an ironic circumstance lies in its apparently wanton thwarting by a narrow margin of a normal sequence in itself logical and desirable, or in an imposition of calamity on the same exasperating terms. Either it frustrates not merely what might have been but what almost was, or it brings to pass the disaster that was almost averted. It might come under the simpler caption of bad luck, except that not all bad luck is ironic; only a particular brand of it. Irony is the obverse side of that happy concatenation of events which we approvingly designate as Providential. The favoring and therefore the rational and commendable happening is an act of special providence. The contrary comes from the malicious mischief of the Aristophanes of Heaven.
In literature the ironic temper has acquitted itself with distinguished success. Among its contributions one recalls The Dinner of Trimalchio, The Golden Ass (and the medieval Burnellus), Letters of Obscure Men, Praise of Folly, Gargantua, Don Quixote, The Gull’s Hornbook, Knight of the Burning Pestle, A Modest Proposal, The Shortest Way with Dissenters, Candide, Jonathan Wild, Murder as a Fine Art, Castle Rackrent, Northanger Abbey, The Fair Haven. A glance at the list shows the versatile nature of irony both as to form and idea, though its history taken as a whole has shown more predilection for the romantic than for the realistic method. It is an ingredient in all burlesque and caricature, and is on the other hand least necessary to an explicit presentation of reality, however full this last may be of implicit irony. Its consistent practice is to deceive, and this can more easily be accomplished through fantasy and symbolism. When, however, it is accomplished by more demure and disarming means, the deception is more thorough just because of taking the reader unaware. One is on guard against any form of the symbolic, knowing that some suspicious thing is therein concealed. But who would think of questioning a collection of letters, an essay or a treatise? Yet these are the culprits guilty of ruthlessly hoodwinking the trusting literal mind.
Ulrich von Hutten’s Epistolæ were edited by Maittaire, and the edition reviewed by Steele (whom we should not expect to be caught napping), both taking them seriously. Defoe’s pilloried renown is well known. Butler’s work “in Defense of the Miraculous Element in Our Lord’s Ministry upon Earth,” was solemnly greeted by the reviewers as a champion of orthodoxy, and sent by Canon Ainger to a friend he wished to convert. Swift and De Quincey have been condemned for abuse of children and encouragement of crime.
Misunderstanding of this sort is a triumph for irony, a test of success. But there are also signs of a misapprehension of the ironic disposition, especially as related to the satiric. Of this conception two modern critics afford examples. In the Introduction to his Defoe, Masefield remarks,—
“An ironical writer has always nobility of soul; a satirist has seldom any quality save greater baseness than his subject. An ironical writer knows the good; a satirist need only know the evil.”