Chris Stroffolino suggests that the term irony covers up a broader range of issues:

Dear Ron – –

I've been wanting to respond to a point you made on the blog about "irony" – specifically this...

“I would characterize irony – the ability to say one thing while communicating something quite discordant to the denotation – as one aspect of humor & an especially important one in this epoch in the U.S. (I don’t want to generalize here.) Context is so important in humor &, by definition, so pliable & subject to change, that it is almost impossible to ensure that what is uproarious in one setting will remain so over time.”

I like this perception/insight. One issue for me about the above definition of irony (and not with your statement in particular – since it's part of a common definition of irony) is that it seems it could also equally be applicable to a lot of things that aren't called "irony." That old "New Critical" saw that (I'm probably slightly misquoting it) "a poem should not mean but be" (or a poem should not JUST mean but also be) would seem to be very similar to your definition of irony. Is any awareness of a difference between connotation and denotation, or between a singular intention and multiple interpretations, or of a suggestive ambiguity that often is reduced to being read one way, necessarily "ironic?" If so, then, doesn't the word "ironic" become so broad that it would become itself a mere connotation rather than a denotation; that it refers to a mood the reader is in when s/he reads the poem or other writing-act?

I guess it is because of such "definitions" of "irony," that I am wary about its usefulness as a critical term. To label such a process "irony" seems too narrow – which is why I often buckle at the way the word "ironic" is used (whether dismissively or even as a non-pejorative kind of shorthand characterization) to describe a poem or poet. This also applies to something called "non-ironic" (since that term presupposes irony)....

I know there is supposed to be a "serious" vs. "ironic" distinction, that is perhaps ultimately "musical" (and thus – I'd argue – in the ear of the beholder), but it seems that what you're driving at is the question of WHAT OTHER WORK IS THE POEM DOING BESIDE MEANING (that is assuming that it IS also meaning, or meaning to mean, which of course is not a safe assumption in the 20th century). And it would seem that a poem that does, on one level, have "something to say" may be at odds with itself as a poem much more than a poem that doesn't have anything to say.....and this may be why "didactic" or seemingly didactic poetry makes some people uncomfortable, and why others sometimes crave it.... For me analogies with rock music songs are helpful in addressing this question – in part because I took rock lyrics seriously before I took poetry seriously. When I started taking poetry seriously, one of the questions I asked myself was: What is it that poetry must do that song lyrics don't do? What is the equivalent – in poetry – of the singer's "voice" or the guitar solos, etc? There's a lot to say about this, but, to be brief and tie it more explicitly back to your point, it seems to be that this question, to you (by your definition of irony), might be paraphrased as "what must a poem do to be ironic?" Thus, is any awareness of aestheticism (however "dissonant" or "discordant" or "clunky" or whatever) in poetry automatically irony? Well, that's one of the implications I see in your definition....

Perhaps the more profound issue is the term "postmodern irony" – If I tend to see what is often called (though not by me) "postmodern irony" in pre"-postmodern" writers, it could be that I'm simply reading them with my own "postmodern" sensibility, but it could equally be that what's called "postmodern" irony isn't as "postmodern" as some like to believe.

Okay, I'll stop here now – –

I just wanted to write because I really appreciate what you're doing with the blog....

Chris