SOURCE: Wedd, Mary R. “That Dangerous Figure—Irony.” The Charles Lamb Bulletin, n.s., 73 (January 1991): 1-12.

In the following essay, Wedd discusses Lamb's subtle and complex use of irony in his Elian essay “Poor Relations.”

Irony, the Oxford Dictionary tells us, is a ‘Figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used’, often ‘taking the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt’; as when Swift put forward ‘A Modest Proposal for preventing the Children of Poor People from being a Burden to their Parents or the Country …’—by using them as meat. ‘I grant’, says Swift, ‘this food will be somewhat dear but never mind, the rich can afford it’. As readers are reputed to have believed implicitly in Gulliver and written letters to him, is it perhaps possible today...