Figures
The ironists themselves — practitioners whose lives or methods enact the thing they described.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute
Table of Contents
Practitioners. A figure earns a page when the irony is not only in the work but in the life.
2 entries.
Oscar Wilde
9/10attestedcanonExpectation: The sharpest wit in London, master of saying the dangerous thing safely, files a libel suit to defend his name.
Reversal: The accusation was true. His own lawsuit assembled the evidence for his own prosecution — the wordsmith undone by initiating the one proceeding where words are checked against f...
Socrates
9/10attestedcanonExpectation: The city that invented open debate would tolerate — even prize — the man who took the examined life most seriously.
Reversal: Athens executed its examiner. The verdict proved his indictment of the city more efficiently than any dialogue could have.