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 Geary
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web Lovers of dramatic irony have a lot to dig into here. Joshua Rivera, The Verge, 11 Jan. 2021 Every line was written with an eye on an all-too-aware 2022 audience, substituting cheap dramatic irony for genuine drama that none of the writers figured out how to generate. Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Apr. 2022 The film’s most powerful narrative device is a near-continuous deployment of this type of dramatic irony. Kevin Dettmar, The New Yorker, 23 Mar. 2022 Winning Time has received some criticism for a possible excess of the fourth-wall-breaking, dramatic irony and genre-tweaking that are McKay’s hallmarks. Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 Mar. 2022 This is dramatic irony, and a call-back to the use of the song at the very end of the original series. Jackson Mchenry, Vulture, 9 Dec. 2021 The budding rapper challenged White to push himself and inspired him to further hone is craft, but there is sad, dramatic irony in knowing Shakur would be gunned down at age 25 after reaching the heights of music stardom. Washington Post, 18 Dec. 2021 Fad tries to shoot Jet, but in a nice little bit of dramatic irony, Jet uses his fake arm to block the bullet and shoots Fad instead. Scott Meslow, Vulture, 20 Nov. 2021 In Magma, though, the cumulative effect of many such self-recriminations is a sense of dramatic irony. Brandon Taylor, Vulture, 5 Aug. 2021 See More
Joshua Rivera, The Verge, 11 Jan. 2021 Every line was written with an eye on an all-too-aware 2022 audience, substituting cheap dramatic irony for genuine drama that none of the writers figured out how to generate. Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Apr. 2022 The film’s most powerful narrative device is a near-continuous deployment of this type of dramatic irony. Kevin Dettmar, The New Yorker, 23 Mar. 2022 Winning Time has received some criticism for a possible excess of the fourth-wall-breaking, dramatic irony and genre-tweaking that are McKay’s hallmarks. Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 Mar. 2022 This is dramatic irony, and a call-back to the use of the song at the very end of the original series. Jackson Mchenry, Vulture, 9 Dec. 2021 The budding rapper challenged White to push himself and inspired him to further hone is craft, but there is sad, dramatic irony in knowing Shakur would be gunned down at age 25 after reaching the heights of music stardom. Washington Post, 18 Dec. 2021 Fad tries to shoot Jet, but in a nice little bit of dramatic irony, Jet uses his fake arm to block the bullet and shoots Fad instead. Scott Meslow, Vulture, 20 Nov. 2021 In Magma, though, the cumulative effect of many such self-recriminations is a sense of dramatic irony. Brandon Taylor, Vulture, 5 Aug. 2021 See More Word History
First Known Use
1881, in the meaning defined above