Artistic and aesthetic features of irony

Abstract

This article examines irony as a multidimensional linguistic, philosophical, ethical, aesthetic, and axiological phenomenon in human discourse and contemporary culture. Irony is interpreted not merely as a stylistic device, but as a sociocultural mechanism that enables a speaker to maintain critical distance from established norms, expose hypocrisy, and reassess moral and social values. The study analyzes the dual axiological nature of irony: on the one hand, it functions as a means of critically evaluating deviations from accepted norms and shortcomings of reality; on the other, it may express the speaker’s subjective intellectual superiority and provide an encoded way of avoiding responsibility. Particular attention is paid to the aesthetic functions of irony in postmodern literature, where it creates multiple layers of meaning, destabilizes genre and textual boundaries, and encourages the reconstruction of value systems. These functions are discussed through the ideas of Umberto Eco, I. Pasi, V. Pivoyev, and V. Jankelevich.