The Study Of Hutcheon’s Postmodern Irony

The paper falls into three chapters.In chapter one,the historical forms of the evolution of irony are introduced.The concept of irony originated in ancient Greek,and developed from the.period of German Romanticism,New Criticism,Modernism to Postmodernism,in which its connotation is enriched and improved a lot.These scholars gave their own expositions of irony from different perspectives,which presented as four main historical forms:Rhetoric irony,the romantic irony,the New Critical irony and the postmodern irony.In chapter two,the meaning and characteristics of Hutcheon’s theory of postmodern are described.To take the broad view,the postmodern irony is an significant practice of postmodern "anti aesthetic " in the background of postmodern society.From the first section to the third section,the specific meaning and characteristics of this irony theory are explained in detail.Firstly,irony is as the intentional act of interpreters.Hutcheon proposed that irony is not irony until it’s interpreted as irony,and irony happens in the intentional act of interpreters.Therefore,the context of irony is produced.Secondly,irony is as politics of transideological.Huctheon proposed that postmodern irony is a kind of discursive strategy with a critical edge in emotion and ethics.Besides,irony can and does function tactically in the service of a wide range of political positions,legitimating or undercutting a wide variety of interests.Therefore,the standpoint of irony is transideological.Thirdly,irony is as a process of communication.Hutcheon proposed that the real meaning of irony is a playing together of two or more semantic notes to produce a third one.Therefore,the semantics of irony is a movement.Such a framework of the theory manifests that Huctheon puts emphasize on the occurrence,function and semantic issues of irony,intended to illustrate the role of irony in the context.Therefore,she subtly avoided the trap that post modernism used to deconstruct the center in a noble gesture,and also endowed the theory of irony with the spirit of rational retrospection and criticism,which not only refers to the reflection of the objective world,but also refers to the kind of spirit of retrospection that consciousness rediscovers the consciousness itself when pondering something.This echos the spirit of freedom to explore the unknown field,which was among the the irony theory put forward by Socrates,Kierkegaard and Schlegel.In chapter three,Hutcheon’s theory of postmodern irony is introspected.The first section explains the inspiration of Hutcheon’ s theory of postmodern irony.Firstly,the postmodern irony is the way to realize the cultural politics.It opened the closed space of culture and politics,and became the window of the culture entering and even intervening the political affairs in the late capitalism society.Secondly,the postmodern irony provides semantic negative space.Irony’s unsaid meaning is always related to the ideology in context.Besides,irony,which can keep a clear recognition of ideology,constitutes an important criticism of post modernist texts.Thirdly,the postmodern irony is the retrospection of aesthetic experience.Hutcheon proposed that irony was recognized only when the irony was interpreted as irony,and the interpretation is creating instead of simply recognizing.If the general model of aesthetic experience is to overcome the automation of daily life with a new understanding of the aesthetic experience,then irony is to overcome the automation of the aesthetic experience by aesthetic introspection.The second section firstly summarizes the research methods,mainly including the interaction between theory and practice and collaborative model of scholarship.Then,the limitations of Hutcheon’s theory of postmodernism are put forward:the practice of irony and the dispute over the role of interpreters in irony.