Dramatic Irony in Poetry?

Question

Jeez. I've been looking everywhere for an example for a homework assignment. Does anybody have an example of dramatic irony IN poetry. not just a description of what happened thats ironic.

Answer 1

1) Oedipus Rex is perhaps the most famous example of dramatic irony you will encounter.

***You know that dramatic irony is when we know more than the characters (or speakers) involved.*** Since you have that in mind, here are some more examples:

2) Protocols by Randal Jarrell

We went there on the train. They had big barges that they towed.
We stood up, there were so many I was squashed.
There was a smoke-stack, then they made me wash.
It was a factory, I think. My mother held me up
And I could see the ship that made the smoke.
When I was tired my mother carried me.
She said, "Don't be afraid." But I was only tired.
Where we went there is no more .Odessa.
They had water in a pipe--like rain, but hot;
The water there is deeper than the world
And I was tired and fell in in my sleep
And the water drank me. That is what I think.
And I said to my mother, "Now I'm washed and dried.”
My mother hugged me and it smelled like hay
And that is how you die. And that is how you die.

***Dramatic irony in that the child thinks she is "washed and dried" when in fact we know she was killed in a camp during the holocaust.***



3) The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter
by Ezra Pound.


While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums,
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen, I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout.

At sixteen you departed.
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And. you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

***Dramatic irony since we know the guy (a bastard who takes advantage of young girls) will never return, yet she waits and hopes).***

Regards,

Mysstere

Answer 2

Irony In Poetry

Answer 3

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RE:
Dramatic Irony in Poetry?
Jeez. I've been looking everywhere for an example for a homework assignment. Does anybody have an example of dramatic irony IN poetry. not just a description of what happened thats ironic.

Answer 4

Look into Sophocles' "Oedipus the King". Scene 1, 3-34, 41-56-Oedipus' exhortation and oath. Scene 1, 60-65, Chorago's question and Oedipus' reply. It is too long to include in this text so I urge you to read these lines. Let me know if u need further help. Good luck.

Answer 5

Robert Browning's Porphyria's lover - absolutely beautiful, haunting and shocking dramatic irony. I love it. one of my all time fav poems

Answer 6

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I think the poem's ironic innocence it designed to illicit sorrow and compassion in the reader. In "Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!" the boy was so young, he didn't know what suffering and sorrow his life had. Also "weep" rhymes with "sweep" and makes a connection between the two. In "Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare, / You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair." the poet is creating sorrow for the lack of child labor laws, as the speaker is sarcastically representing people's lack of concern by overlooking the innocence of children who console themselves when they cry, and the white hair is a metaphor for purity and innocence that is soiled by black soot. In "He'd have God for his father, and never want joy." the speaker says that the boy will have a father when he dies and he will never want joy, because he will have it, or at least not be suffering having a body and working as a chimney sweeper.

Answer 7

One fine day in the middle of the night,

Two dead boys* got up to fight, [*or men]

Back to back they faced each other,

Drew their swords and shot each other,


One was blind and the other couldn't, see

So they chose a dummy for a referee.

A blind man went to see fair play,

A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"


A paralysed donkey passing by,

Kicked the blind man in the eye,

Knocked him through a nine inch wall,

Into a dry ditch and drowned them all,


A deaf policeman heard the noise,

And came to arrest the two dead boys,

If you don't believe this story’s true,

Ask the blind man he saw it too!

Answer 8

Lol I'm sorry I don't know what most of those things mean!! Haha please don't find me stupid? But then again, I am 13... Just Google it! I'm sure you'll find something. :-)