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Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Key Examples in As You Like It
Act 2, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Free from Peril:
In a moment of situational irony in Act 2, Scene 1, Duke Senior admits that he is safer in the Woods of Arden than he ever was in the court:
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court? [...]
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
“This is no flattery. These are counselors
That feelingly persuade me of what I am.”
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Play the Knave :
In Act 3, Scene 2, Rosalind and Celia stumble upon Orlando and Jaques in the woods. In a moment of dramatic irony, Rosalind quickly makes a plan overheard by the audience, but not Orlando or Jaques:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Rosalind, [aside to Celia]: I will speak to him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the knave with him. [As Ganymede.] Do you hear, forester?
Orlando: Very well. What would you?
Related Themes:
Act 4, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Look You Lisp:
In Act 4, Scene 1, after Jaques explains that having traveled is the source of his melancholy, Rosalind responds with gentle irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Farewell, Monsieur Traveller.
Look you lisp and wear strange suits, disable all
the benefits of your own country, be out of love with
your nativity, and almost chide God for making
you that countenance you are, or I will scarce think you
have swam in a gondola.
Related Themes:
Act 5, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Oliver and Aliena:
In Act 5, Orlando and Oliver debate the merit of Oliver's love for the shepherdess “Aliena.” Orlando questions the speed of the courtship. In a moment of dramatic irony, Oliver expresses his willingness to marry a shepherdess, with all of the potential consequences of that choice:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting, but say with me “I love Aliena”; say with her that she loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other. It shall be to your good, for my father’s house and all the revenue that was old Sir Rowland’s will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.
Related Themes:
