Ironic, Satirical, Sardonic, Sarcastic

[grasshopper]

What's the difference? Somebody please tell me!

Reviving this from another thread, which has gone hunting under the bridge:

I wouldn't want to start a war or anything, but I've been trying to distinguish the difference between sarcastic and sardonic for a while. Anyone have any ideas?

I also have a difficult time defining the differences between ironic and satirical. Irony is so often a part of satire that it's hard to separate them. Can anybody help me out?

[goldstein]

I think the ordering of the terms in your heading is very good.

To me Ironic is the most general category of the the distance between the intended and the actual (Oedipus, Gift of the Magi).

Satire would be finding the humor in the actual, heightened most as the actual is least funny and so enters irony.  Parody would be a first cousin, a satire on an actual work of art.

Sardonic would be a very bleak form of irony as in Ambrose Bierce.

Sarcasm is distinguished as almost always at someone else's expense. 

Irony is generally the most subtle form of humor, sarcasm the most crass.  I think it unfortunate that so many people now attempt to defend their sarcasm by calling it irony.

[noof_]

I think the ordering of the terms in your heading is very good.

To me Ironic is the most general category of the the distance between the intended and the actual (Oedipus, Gift of the Magi).

Satire would be finding the humor in the actual, heightened most as the actual is least funny and so enters irony.  Parody would be a first cousin, a satire on an actual work of art.

Sardonic would be a very bleak form of irony as in Ambrose Bierce.

Sarcasm is distinguished as almost always at someone else's expense. 

Irony is generally the most subtle form of humor, sarcasm the most crass.  I think it unfortunate that so many people now attempt to defend their sarcasm by calling it irony.

Fantastic explanation.

Please don't disappear.

[drangie]

 

Sarcasm is distinguished as almost always at someone else's expense. 

 

Yeah, right.

[georgia_guy]

When I think of ironic, the following situation always comes to my mind:

http://www.snopes.com/autos/accident/seatbelt.asp

Basically, for those of you who don't want to click through, In September, 2004, a 21 year old journalist published an article on why seatbelt laws were a violation of his individual rights, and that he refused to wear them.

In January 2005, he died in a car crash, thrown from the vehicle because he was not wearing a seatbelt.

[trentsands]

Let's start with dictionary definitions -- Oxford English Dictionary...

Irony - "A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used" i.e. Sarcasm

or

"A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things."

Satire - "A poem, or in modern use sometimes a prose composition, in which prevailing vices or follies are held up to ridicule. Sometimes, less correctly, applied to a composition in verse or prose intended to ridicule a particular person or class of persons, a lampoon."

Sardonic - "Of laughter, a smile: Bitter, scornful, mocking. Hence of a person, personal attribute, etc.: Characterized by or exhibiting bitterness, scorn or mockery."

[prytania3]

Ironic:


http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0183.html

Sardonic:


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sardonic


Sarcasm:

http://www.bartleby.com/59/7/sarcasm.html

[georgia_guy]

Ironic:
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0183.html

Sardonic:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sardonic

Sarcasm:
http://www.bartleby.com/59/7/sarcasm.html

Well, that settles it, new custom title for me.

[grasshopper]

While your definitions are helpful, I don't buy the hierarchy set up in your catergorizations, Goldstein.

My dictionary definitions (posted on That Other Thread) are similar to Trentsands':

SATIRE: use of ridicule to expose vice or folly
SARDONIC: mocking or scornful
SARCASM: bitter or wounding ironic language


Something alluded to by both Trentsands and Georgia Guy is the difference between rhetorical irony and situational irony (think Swift and Seinfeld). And again, a quote from That Other Thread:

Irony has to do with double meaning. Something (a fact, a comment) can simply be ironic, whereas parody requires a narrative, something that extends over time.

Good point. There are a lot of different types of irony. Verbal/rhetorical irony was, from what I remember, pretty much the be all end all of irony until the 18th (?) century. It referred to a statement where the intended meaning of the statement is in direct opposition to the statement itself.

Which sounds an awful lot like sarcasm, no?

Anyway, around the late 18th C. (I think?), things changed, and the definition of irony extended to include situational irony - an awareness of paradox, etc.  I seem to remember reading that this was very postmodern - self-reflexive, etc... 

Situational irony doesn't require a narrative. (Neither would rhetorical irony, I suppose, although even a simple ironic statement would have to be placed within a narrative to make any sense as an "opposite," wouldn't it?)

So here's another possible difference between satire and irony. Satire (and it's more vulgar counterpart, parody) require a narrative. Irony, perhaps not so much? This fits in nicely with Trentsands' dictionary definitions.

Although now that I think of it, isn't situational irony a narrative in itself? Oh, now that my mind is travelling that path, I recall Ricoeur discussing something similar to this in the first few chapters of Rule of Metaphor. I think - and I'm really digging deep here - that in his explanation of ancient Greek understandings of different literary tropes, he refers to irony (not situational, obviously) as being, like metaphor, dependent upon a communal narrative that is being both transgressed and simultaneously substantiated by the ironic rhetoric itself.

Whooo boy. I'm really digging this hole deeper, aren't I?

[qrypt]

No no, it's good stuff, keep going.  I want more.

(And, if it's not excessively interthreadual, I will quote myself: Mid-town Sheraton, 7:30pm, 11th August, white silk scarf.

This intellectual stuff really does it for me sometimes...)

[malcha]

There's a medieval grammar that defines ironia by example:

Monk walks into refectory, which contains no apples, and asks "Are there apples?"  Other monk replies (voice presumably dripping with sarcasm) "Yes, there are apples."

The friend who dug this up in her research referred to it as the "Yeah, we have bananas" definition of irony.

[verbena]

There's a medieval grammar that defines ironia by example:

Monk walks into refectory, which contains no apples, and asks "Are there apples?"  Other monk replies (voice presumably dripping with sarcasm) "Yes, there are apples."

The friend who dug this up in her research referred to it as the "Yeah, we have bananas" definition of irony.

And this must be the inspiration for Monty Python's cheese shop sketch.

[eyetoeye]

I'm liking this thread better.

[goldstein]

While your definitions are helpful, I don't buy the hierarchy set up in your catergorizations, Goldstein.

My dictionary definitions (posted on That Other Thread) are similar to Trentsands':

SATIRE: use of ridicule to expose vice or folly
SARDONIC: mocking or scornful
SARCASM: bitter or wounding ironic language


Something alluded to by both Trentsands and Georgia Guy is the difference between rhetorical irony and situational irony (think Swift and Seinfeld). And again, a quote from That Other Thread:

Irony has to do with double meaning. Something (a fact, a comment) can simply be ironic, whereas parody requires a narrative, something that extends over time.

Good point. There are a lot of different types of irony. Verbal/rhetorical irony was, from what I remember, pretty much the be all end all of irony until the 18th (?) century. It referred to a statement where the intended meaning of the statement is in direct opposition to the statement itself.

Which sounds an awful lot like sarcasm, no?

Anyway, around the late 18th C. (I think?), things changed, and the definition of irony extended to include situational irony - an awareness of paradox, etc.  I seem to remember reading that this was very postmodern - self-reflexive, etc... 

Situational irony doesn't require a narrative. (Neither would rhetorical irony, I suppose, although even a simple ironic statement would have to be placed within a narrative to make any sense as an "opposite," wouldn't it?)

So here's another possible difference between satire and irony. Satire (and it's more vulgar counterpart, parody) require a narrative. Irony, perhaps not so much? This fits in nicely with Trentsands' dictionary definitions.

Although now that I think of it, isn't situational irony a narrative in itself? Oh, now that my mind is travelling that path, I recall Ricoeur discussing something similar to this in the first few chapters of Rule of Metaphor. I think - and I'm really digging deep here - that in his explanation of ancient Greek understandings of different literary tropes, he refers to irony (not situational, obviously) as being, like metaphor, dependent upon a communal narrative that is being both transgressed and simultaneously substantiated by the ironic rhetoric itself.

Whooo boy. I'm really digging this hole deeper, aren't I?

But I am not asking you to buy them, I offered them gratis in response to your professed interest in enlarging your understanding of the terms.  I happened to find your own ordering of them intuitively insightful. I had assumed that you knew the dictionary definitions of them, so I felt simply repeating those definitions would be insulting.

Certainly rhetorical irony is of the statement, but I can't see how situational irony can exist absent the narrative that establishes the situation.  In either case it is the distance between the actual and the intended, as also indicated in each of the dictionary definitions, that always underlies irony.

English syntax can help with irony as opposed to satire/parody.  We seem to recognize that something is ironic, but that satires and parodies are of/about something else.

I very much like the etymology of "sardonic" in its indication of both laughter and death.  I don't think it is possible to discuss or understand sarcasm absent it's intent to personally wound, demean attack or dismiss. An operational definition of sarcasm is available on another thread here that purports to be about irony, but which only serves to demonstrate that very few are able to deploy irony.

[teeban]

I'm liking this thread better.

I am reporting you for answering a question that was not asked of you.