Irony, Thy Name Is England

Keep in mind, I teach a course in British Literature, which I usually prefer to title "Celtic Lit" just to show my disdain for the cultural rapists of the Isle of Britain ... but I love their writers and most of their culture actually.

I do loathe their politicians with a blazing white hot vituperativeness that exceeds the surface temps of a super nova (alliteration intended ...)

So the moaning and griping by English soccer chumps and even ESPN over the lone U.S. goal this past Saturday makes me eye roll like one of my students. Hell, the carping tone of the BBC coverage alone could make my cat laugh in its pathos.

But the bitching has become a blessing ... now I can teach irony all that much better to my young charges. You see, finding photos like the one below are rarely as symbiotic as this one, but now I can teach verbal vs. situational irony in one fell swoop (<--- note allusion to Shakespeare's Macbeth) ... what is meant by what was written behind the goalie, means something quite different to the watcher than is intended, but only after we see the irony of the failed stop by England's Robert Green ...




Of course, one could reasonably argue that the muff by Green is dramatic irony ... but if you know the world's game, you know that NOBODY expected that mistake at that moment in time ... and as situational irony surprises us into the vortex of the moment, while dramatic irony lets us watch the vortex suck up the character ... well, as I said . . . a picture is worth a thousand words, or at least one boring lecture ...

::: queue the eye roll :::

Finski