yeah playing with the three types of irony was extremely popular in early 1700s britlit. early american lit tried to distinguish itself from britlit by focusing less on irony and more on allegory and symbolism. however by the late 1800s american lit came to emphasize irony almost as hard as the previous century’s britlit had, though i think our only author to really do as much verbal irony (saying one thing, meaning another) as that era of britlit was F Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s.

i’m curious now how Australian literature plays with irony. if there’s an absence of verbal irony, is there more literary irony (the consequences of the action are tied comically to the action) and dramatic irony (the audience knows things the characters don’t)? and did the divergence happen because our war of independence resulted in the brits no longer using our southern colonies as a penal colony just as they were getting bored of this?

or were early Australians more likely to reject this device because they felt it was a signifier of their oppressors?