Dramatic irony
Under dramatic irony in the theater is meant a irony generated by itself that an interaction between the content displayed on the stage events and the events from the perspective of the viewer is obtained.
In other words, dramatic irony results from the interference of the internal and external communication systems in the theatrical performance. It is largely congruent with the Sophocleean irony, which results from the intentions of Oidipus' speeches and actions and the foreknowledge of the audience about their consequences. It is to be distinguished from irony in drama. According to Manfred Pfister , dramatic irony has to do with different perceptions, first in the internal communication system (characters) and then in the external communication system (viewers). When Antonius repeatedly utters the sentence “Brutus is an honorable man” ( Julius Caesar III, ii) in Caesar's funeral oration, this is ironic and signals to the other characters in the plot the discrepancy between what is said and what is meant - but it is not a dramatic irony. This only occurs in the syntagmatic progression of the action, for example when Macbeth speaks the words “So foul and fair a day I have not seen” (I, iii) in his opening, with which he describes the bad weather and at the same time the joy of the reflects military victory. The viewers, however, immediately remember the witches and their prophecy in Act I, Scene i "Fair is foul, and foul is fair", whereby Macbeth's words gain an additional supernatural nuance of meaning, of which Macbeth knows nothing.
literature
- Manfred Pfister. Das Drama: Theory and Analysis , Munich: Fink, 1977. ISBN 3-7705-1368-1 , pp. 87 f.