Irony and the Discourse of Modernity

171 Pages·1990·8.223 MB·English

by  Ernst Behler

IRONY AND THE DISCOURSE OF MODERNITY

Irony and the
Discourse of Modernity
ERNST BEHLER
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS
Seattle and London
Copyright © 1990 by the University of Washington Press
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechan
ical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Behler, Ernst, 1928-
Irony and the discourse of modernity / Ernst Behler.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-295-96998-9 (alk. paper)
1. Irony in literature. 2. Modernism (Literature)
3. Postmodernism (Literature) 1. Title.
PN56.I65B44 1990 90-11960
809' .918-dc20 CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum require
ments of American National Standard for Information Sciences
Permaneenc e of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-
1984.
Contents
Preface Vll
Abbreviations ix
1. Modernism and Postmodernism
in Contemporary Thought 3
2. The Rise of Literary Modernism
in the Romantic Age 37
3. Irony in the Ancient
and the Modern World 73
4. Irony and Self-Referentiality III
Index of Names 151

Preface
This text was originally presented as the annual faculty
lecture at the University of Washington in November 1986
and, upon invitation from the University of Washington
Press, expanded to its present format. In spite of considerable
additions to the lecture, however, the original line of thought
and argumentation has been maintained. These additions are
all of an illustrative, exemplifying nature and seek to develop
particular points more fully than was possible within the lim
ited scope of the lecture.
As is customary in the faculty lectures at the University of
Washington, topics of one's own research serve as the occa
sion for formulating issues of a broader interest. In this par
ticular case, I tried to explore the question of our own posi
tion in history, the status of our modernity, and our relation
to the tradition, through that figure of speech and writing
which has received the name of irony. Irony, of course, is not
to be taken in any restricted literary meaning, but in that
broad mode of saying it otherwise, of circumlocution, config
uration, and indirect communication characteristic of today's
humanistic anti scientific discourses. This investigation quite
naturally led to the names and themes discussed in this text,
all of which I would like to link more closely with our con
temporary concerns.
Whenever they were available I have used English transla
tions for quotations from foreign sources, but have always
Vll
Vlll Preface
checked the text against the original. When no appropriate
translation was available, I have provided one myself.
ERNST BEHLER
Seattle, March 1989
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used in the text.
AMT Charles de Saint-Evremond, On Ancient and Modern
Tragedy, in The Works of M. de Saint-Evremond (Lon
don, 1928), available in Scott Elledge and Donald
Schier, eds., The Continental Model (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1970), 123-30.
AWS August Wilhelm Schlegel, Kritische Ausgabe seiner Vor
lesungen, ed. Ernst Behler with the collaboration of
Frank Jolles, 6 vols. (Paderborn-Miinchen: Sch6n
ingh, 1989--).
BP Blaise Pascal, Oeuvres completes (Paris: GaIlimard,
1956).
CI S~ren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony with Constant
Reference to Socrates, trans. Lee M. Capel (New York:
Harper and Row, 1965).
CIS Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cam
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)'
CRF Madame de Stael, Considerations sur la Revolution fran
faise, ed. Jacques Godechot (Paris: Tallendier, 1983)'
D Jacques Derrida, "Differance," in Speech and Phenom
ena and Other Essays on Husser/'s Theory of Signs, trans.
David B. Allison and Newton Garver (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1973), 12g--60.
IX