dramatic irony
noun
literature
: incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play : irony sense 2b
All the other doctors are knownothing quacks; that the audience has more medical knowledge than they is but one example of the dramatic irony which is a feature of Alan Bennett's brilliant script.—
Alan Geary
Alan GearyExamples of dramatic irony in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
For older kids, Shaun is a font of humor, often playing on small-scale dramatic ironies and big broad payoffs — there’s a lot of generous slapstick, and the stakes stay pretty low.
—Vulture Editors, Vulture, 11 June 2024
When Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic opened Off Broadway in 2022, there was already a steady drip of dramatic irony in the play.
—Sara Holdren, Vulture, 9 Jan. 2024
In this series, though, the humor is mostly in the vein of flat dramatic irony, using the past to make completely superficial observations about the present.
—Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Sep. 2023
As Elizabeth Guffey, an art- and design-history professor at SUNY Purchase who specializes in retro-futurism, explained to me, a key element of the genre is dramatic irony, a sense of How quaint, how cute toward prior generations’ speculations about the future.
—Ashley Fetters, The Atlantic, 25 June 2020
What a fun, self-aware dose of dramatic irony!
—Vogue, 15 Apr. 2022
In a piece of tragically dramatic irony, after a lifetime of imposing his literary opinions on the world, Gilman was rendered unable to speak in his final years.
—Eve Fairbanks, Washington Post, 14 Feb. 2023
Druckmann and co-showrunner Craig Mazin find a workaround by deploying dramatic irony, giving the viewer knowledge only one character possesses.
—Joshua St. Clair, Men's Health, 10 Feb. 2023
The notion of a doctor being unable to tend to his own maladies is such a fundamental form of dramatic irony, professional variations on it have existed throughout the history of storytelling.
—Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 23 Jan. 2023
Vulture Editors, Vulture, 11 June 2024
When Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic opened Off Broadway in 2022, there was already a steady drip of dramatic irony in the play.
—Sara Holdren, Vulture, 9 Jan. 2024
In this series, though, the humor is mostly in the vein of flat dramatic irony, using the past to make completely superficial observations about the present.
—Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Sep. 2023
As Elizabeth Guffey, an art- and design-history professor at SUNY Purchase who specializes in retro-futurism, explained to me, a key element of the genre is dramatic irony, a sense of How quaint, how cute toward prior generations’ speculations about the future.
—Ashley Fetters, The Atlantic, 25 June 2020
What a fun, self-aware dose of dramatic irony!
—Vogue, 15 Apr. 2022
In a piece of tragically dramatic irony, after a lifetime of imposing his literary opinions on the world, Gilman was rendered unable to speak in his final years.
—Eve Fairbanks, Washington Post, 14 Feb. 2023
Druckmann and co-showrunner Craig Mazin find a workaround by deploying dramatic irony, giving the viewer knowledge only one character possesses.
—Joshua St. Clair, Men's Health, 10 Feb. 2023
The notion of a doctor being unable to tend to his own maladies is such a fundamental form of dramatic irony, professional variations on it have existed throughout the history of storytelling.
—Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 23 Jan. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dramatic irony.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near dramatic irony
Cite this Entry
“Dramatic irony.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dramatic%20irony. Accessed 4 Jul. 2024.
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