Sarcasm

[Onasander]

John Haiman writes: "There is an extremely close connection between sarcasm and irony, and literary theorists in particular often treat sarcasm as simply the crudest and least interesting form of irony." Also, he adds:

 

First, situations may be ironic, but only people can be sarcastic. Second, people may be unintentionally ironic, but sarcasm requires intention. What is essential to sarcasm is that it is overt irony intentionally used by the speaker as a form of verbal aggression.[9]

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

 

I'm not getting this, they seem to want to make Sarcasm as a subordinate category of Irony (All Sarcasm is Irony but not all Irony is Sarcasm), but give it a expressive component, which enlarges it outside of the scope of Irony, for Irony can be just subjective in perceiving, without need for a external, expressive component.

 

They've gone and added a social-emotional component, declaring it as it's crudest (root/base/origin) state, but "higher" levels of irony can be totally void of this interpersonal orientation.

 

This would suggest to me Irony and Sarcasm aren't automatically dependent, one upon the other, but are rather pluralistic options a individual has in reacting emotionally to stimuli.

 

For example, everyone jumping out yelling surprise to you on a day, unknown to them, is NOT your birthday can be responded to, but your more likely to be startled and inhibited, and confounded too. From a third person perspective, we know the situation is ironic, but neither the startled person nor the party knows it's ironic yet, as the necessary computations has yet to be made yet. Yet, once the calculations are made, the initial steps in the reaction can be considered ironic..... the surprise and inhibition of the "birthday boy" trying to figure it out.

 

That is A ROOT of Irony, not Irony. Notice no Sarcasm occurred.

 

A necessary hurdle both have to take before being properly sarcasm or irony is a asymmetrical juxtaposition of Value A for Value B that effects a sense of self.

 

Both Irony and Sarcasm can occur minus a second party "interpersonally", take in antiquity the reading of animal entrails or lightening.... if it's based on.a systematic logic, the logic can be stretched with the right question and reply couplets. To a modern observer, a individual could achieve a sarcastic or ironic reading by seeming accident all by their lonesome if they believe the Gods really are sending messages and the message came back screwy.

[GhostOfClayton]

If something ironic has irony, what does something sardonic have?

 

I always felt that Vespesian's last words, "Vae, puto, deus fio" (Uh, oh! It seems I'm becoming a God!) were spoken with a knowing look and an eyebrow firmly raised.

[Onasander]

Yes,that is Sarcasm, mocking the Julian Dynasty's Deification process.

 

But when it was said, just who was being mocked? Julians were dead. Was he mocking the people? Was it anyone alive? Or did the sarcasm operate on another mechanism?

 

A few Roman Emperors were not that concern about their cults while alive, I think in particular I recall Trajan playing down his own cult while emphasizing the sacred aspect of the land/statues of previous emperors, which has that split mechanism that I identified earlier that would make it comedic if it wasn't so odd or perplexing.

 

It becomes Ironic in say, the deification of Alexander Severus, first Christian Emperor. At that point, the process was clearly mechanical and required no actual investigation into the merits. However, absolutely not sarcastic. No one apparently prior to me took.a sarcastic approach to it, as I used it in a larger Rhetorical program (why Constantine is a saint while Alexander actually was first and was martyred).

[GhostOfClayton]

But when it was said, just who was being mocked? Julians were dead. Was he mocking the people? Was it anyone alive? Or did the sarcasm operate on another mechanism?

 

I think it did.  There's a very clever comedian in the UK called Stewart Lee, and his gags and comedy is aimed pretty squarely at those with a bit of you-know-what in the head department.  Sometimes, predictably, the gag is so clever that insufficient of his audience get it to start a laugh (although a few extra seconds' thought will often get you there, it's too late in a live comedy situation).  In these instances, he'll look wryly at the camera (as if sharing a joke with the TV audience and not the live audience) a say "sometimes you put one in that's 'just for you' ".  I think that was what Vespasian was doing.  Making a little sarcastic comment, purely for his own benefit.