irony, originally a technical rhetorical term: 'a figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used' (OED). The word is not found in Chaucer's English, but the L. ironia is used in early rhetorical treatises. In modern criticism 'irony' may be used in wider senses—'dramatic irony', the 'ironic pattern' of a story, or a writer's 'ironic vision', etc. Types of irony carefully controlled by the writer are sometimes distinguished from 'unstable' irony, which sets up disturbing resonances and ambiguities that go beyond the text or raises questions beyond those posed by the narrative voice.
In the criticism of Chaucer there has been a discernable shift in the importance attributed to irony (see criticism of Chaucer II). Early critics hardly mention it. It begins to attract attention in the 19th c. Leigh Hunt, for instance, noting that it is 'a mode of speech generally adopted for purposes of satire, but may be made the vehicle of the most exquisite compliment', gives an example of how Chaucer 'with a delightful impudence, has drawn a pretended compliment out of a satire the most outrageous' in Chauntecleer's 'Mulier est hominis confusio', which insult 'he proceeds to translate into an eulogy' (VII.3163–6). J. W. Hales in 1873 praises Chaucer's blend of pity and irony ('that dissembling, so to speak, that self-retention and reticence, or at least, indirect presentment, that is a frequent characteristic of the consummate dramatist, or the consummate writer of any kind who aims at portraying life in all its breadth'). But it is the criticism of the second half of the 20th c. with its love of ambiguity which has really emphasized his irony.
It has sometimes overemphasized it. A determination to find a pervasive irony has produced some extreme and unconvincing readings (as of The Knight's Tale as a totally ironic and anti-chivalric work). The idea of the naive and gullible persona of 'Chaucer the Pilgrim' or the use of the 'frame-narrative' of The Canterbury Tales as 'an ironically informative clue to the "real" meaning of a tale' have sometimes been taken to dubious extremes. As Pearsall says, the employment of the 'dramatic principle' as a means of ironization allows the appropriation of tales not to modern taste to 'some fashionable modern ideology': 'by this means Chaucer can be recruited to worthy causes, and all need of effort at true understanding is removed.'
There are certainly cases where it is genuinely difficult to decide if irony is present, or if it is, how sharp it is. Chaucer is fond of combining different tones within the same line, so that it is misleading to suppose that every instance of irony is totally 'reductive'. It is by no means always true that 'the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used'. Not only are there delicate gradations, but the irony is often intermittent and flickering rather than a consistent presence. It is subtle and shifting, for 'if everything is ironical, nothing is interesting, since the reader has been deprived of those conspiratorial pleasures, those satisfactions of knowing that he has joined an elite fraternity of knowingness' (Pearsall).
Variety is to be found as well as subtlety. Among some fine examples of dramatic irony may be mentioned the moment in The Pardoner's Tale when the three rioters, having just been told of the whereabouts of death, run to the pile of gold under the tree, or the extended scene between the summoner and the 'yeoman' in The Friar's Tale. In Troilus and Criseyde, where dramatic irony is frequent, it is very often used not to reveal folly but to enhance the pathos and tragedy of the lovers' situation. In The Merchant's Tale we find a powerful undercurrent of irony pointed by sardonic asides. The many ironic or semi-ironic remarks made by Chaucer or his narrators help to produce a shifting perspective or a delightful uncertainty: 'This storie is also trewe … | As is the book of Launcelot de Lake, | That wommen holde in ful greet reverence' (VII.3211–13), 'Thise been the cokkes wordes, and nat myne' (VII.3265), etc. A poetic irony which holds discordant elements together produces a characteristic balance of detachment and sympathy.
Booth, Wayne C. (1974), A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago);
Pearsall, Derek (1985), The Canterbury Tales (London), pp.63;
Muecke, D. C. (1982), Irony and the Ironic (2nd edn., London).
From The Oxford Companion to Chaucer
