(Note: Sometimes the rhetorical devices examined in these recent posts are more generally referred to in the study of poetry as figures of speech, sometimes more generically as figurative language, and sometimes as rhetorical devices. It is more important, of course, to understand the concept rather than the label.)
Like Personification, Hyperbole, and Apostrophe, Irony and Paradox also are used by poets to intensify meaning.
Irony–from Greek, “eiron,” a “dissembler”–is the use of words to convey a meaning opposite to the literal meaning of those words. For instance, after someone does you a disfavor, you might say, “Aren’t you a prince.” Or after taking a very difficult exam, a student may say, “Well, that was fun.” Warning! Irony, and its sibling satire, may be misconstrued by the listener/reader, who may take the words at their literal meaning. The Irish writer Jonathan Swift (“Gullver’s Travels”) in the eighteenth century wrote the essay, “A Modest Proposal, For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to their Parents,” in which he satirically proposed that the poor of Ireland should prevent starvation by selling their children as food for the rich. It was a biting condemnation of England’s treatment of Ireland and the passivity of the Irish people. Unfortunately, as can be the case with irony and satire, some took the essay literally at first and were horrified. The is the risk of saying what you don’t mean.
A very chilling example of irony in poetry is Donald Baker’s “Formal Application.”
Formal Application
I shall begin by learning to throw
the knife, first at trees, until it sticks
in the trunk and quivers every time;
next from a chair, using only wrist
and fingers, at a thing on the ground,
a fresh ant hill or a fallen leaf;
then at a moving object, perhaps
a pine cone swinging on twine, until
I pot it at least twice in three tries.
Meanwhile, I shall be teaching the birds
that the skinny fellow in sneakers
is a source of suet and bread crumbs,
first putting them on a shingle nailed
to a pine tree, next scattering them
on the needles, closer and closer
to my seat, until the proper bird,
a towhee, I think, in black and rust
and gray, takes tossed crumbs six feet away.
Finally, I shall coordinate
conditioned reflex and functional
form and qualify as Modern Man.
You see the splash of blood and feathers
and the blade pinning it to the tree?
It’s called an “Audubon Crucifix.”
The phrase has pleasing (even pious)
connotations, like Arbeit Macht Frie,
“Molotov Cocktail,” and Enola Gay.
The first three stanzas describe someone practicing to throw a knife accurately in order to hit a target. There is some slight discomfort to the tone due to word-choice: like sticks, quivers, fresh ant hill, pot.
In the next three stanzas, the speaker then shifts his focus to training birds. More discomfort–though we can’t tell how much of this is intentional on the part of the poet– from the proximity of knife and birds, which increases again with word-choice: skinny fellow in sneakers (why describe him so specifically), nails, scattering. Finally, the suggestion that the speaker is luring the birds (to a trap?) is pretty clear.
In the final three stanzas, it now becomes evident that the poet has been training and luring us, the readers, as well, into a false sense of just curiosity. His goal is realized (finally), with language that is now cold and impersonal, almost brutish in its clinicism–coordinate, conditioned reflex, functional form. His formal application is successful, and he qualifies as Modern Man. We may wonder, But what does that mean? The shocking, if not horrifying, words that follow–splash of blood and feathers, blade pinning it, crucifix– clarify his intentions: he has been training the bird to trust him so that he can kill it with his own training with a knife. The irony here is in the speaker’s tone, what he says, which is matter of-fact, compared to the poet’s intention, which is condemnation of cruelty. This is elucidated in the poet’s choice of examples of the pleasing connotation of the name given to the process just described: Audubon Crucifix. The examples that the speaker gives, what he says is pleasing, are in contrast to what the poet means, which is horrifying: “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“work makes you free”)are the words of “encouragement” to Holocaust prisoners displayed over the entrance to Auschwitz; a “Molotov Cocktail” is an improvised firebomb used in war/conflicts; “Enola Gay” is the name (in honor of the pilot’s mother) of the airplane that carried the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The message of the poem (the poet’s intention) would not be as devastating without the use of irony.
Paradox–from Greek, “para,” meaning “contrary to,” and “dox,” meaning “opinion”–is a statement that seems to be self-contradictory but is nevertheless somehow true. “The silence was deafening.” Since we associate deafening with very loud sound, “silence” being deafening seems to be self-contradictory, but the meaning is that the silence was so profound that it shattered hearing.
The critic-labeled Metaphysical Poets of the 17th century are grouped because of their penchant for striking paradoxes and extended metaphors. The most famous of them, John Donne, excelled in the use of paradox, not as an attention-getter, but as a means of, well, ironically clarifying his message. One of the best examples of extended paradox is Donne’s Petrarchan Sonnet, “Holy Sonnet XIV:”
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, ‘and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit You, but O, to no end;
Reason, Your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love You, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto Your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to You, imprison me, for I
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.
The startling images here serve Donne’s cause in emphasizing the severity of the speaker’s desire to be united with God. The concept of a three-personed God, is, of course, a paradox in itself end elucidates His spiritual mystery. The central paradox of the poem is introduced in line three: “That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me.” The statement seems to be self-contradictory, but it is nevertheless true in that the speaker feels that the only way he can rise and stand in God’s glory is if God overthrows his material self. The final three lines, again with startling phrases, compound the paradox with imagery of imprisonment (“enthrall”) and rape (“ravish”) leading to freedom and purity. The speaker, aware of his own weaknesses, realizes that only if God assaults him with His grace will he able to overcome his weaknesses and give himself to God. Powerful stuff.