First published in 1970 and revised in 1982, this work provides a critical overview of the concept of irony in literary criticism. After establishing the relationship of the ironical and the non-ironical, it summarises the history of the concept of irony, before isolating and discussing its basic aspects and the variable features that determine its nature, effect and quality. The book will be a useful resource for those studying irony and English Literature.

The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination examines and illuminates the role which the ironic temper plays in the creation of complex literary comedy. The book focuses on ironic comedy, though not of the kind that is characterized by the surprises and shocks, the incongruities and reversals, of circumstantial irony. Circumstantial—or situational—irony cannot stand alone; it serves, for example, the aggressive functions of satire, or the irrational impulses of farce, or the benevolent, whimsical, or pain-defeating energies of humor.

This book presents a theory of the politics of irony and tests this theory through readings of political theory texts and through an analysis of the politics of the contemporary anti-nuclear movement, and argues that political writing must be ironic.

Working as a news photographer in 30s Berlin, Walther Klinger becomes - by a vicious twist of fate - a society photographer for the new aristocracy of the Nazi party. Walther's complicity makes him increasingly cynical and guilty, so that - for him - the coming of war is almost a relief. In a lonely Brittany farmhouse, just before the Allied invasion, Klinger meets Julia. They begin an affair and, against the background of the horrors and normalities of the Occupation, Walther attempts to make a refuge for himself and Julia. THE PARDON OF ST ANNE is about how he succeeds, triumphantly and tragically.