Unreflected attitude to language

Paul de Man begins with an opposition between allegory and irony.

Allegory is a naïve or unreflected attitude to language. We think that there is a real world and that our language is then a sign of that world. Irony, by contrast, shows that the supposed ‘nature’ that precedes the sign. The self that we supposedly lost is produced through the poem; the poem creates or institutes the division between self and sign. However, any idea that the ironic poem could overcome allegory – or a division between sign and self – is itself naïve.

Any explanation of irony is itself a narrative, is itself always caught up in allegory.

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Former ironists

First of all, despite Shakespeare, We don't know what we are, but we know what we may be.

To come now to our subject, at that point, Socratic irony was defined not just as the use of irony in conversation but also as an entire personality.

Plato’s Socrates was a character who was other than any determined or expressed position; Socrates’ genius was intimated rather than represented. Aristotle’s ironist was, like Plato’s Socrates, one who played down or concealed his virtues and intelligence (Aristotle 1934 [Nicomachean Ethics 4.7.3-5], 241). Aristotle regarded such an ironic personality as neither pernicious nor ideal. Irony was not a vice but it was far from being a virtue. The truly virtuous citizen would be neither boastful, nor ironic, but sincere in his self-presentation.


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Metafiction

Metafiction is a type of fiction which self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction.

It is the term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. It usually involves irony and is self-reflective. It can be compared to presentational theatre in a sense; presentational theatre does not let the audience forget they are viewing a play, and metafiction does not let the readers forget they are reading a work of fiction.

Metafiction is primarily associated with Modernist and Postmodernist literature but can be found at least as far back as Cervantes' Don Quixote and even Chaucer's 14th Century Canterbury Tales.

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