Background Knowledge
Mark Antony’s funeral speech for Julius Caesar Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest (For Brutus is an honourable man, So are they all, all honourable men), Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me; But Brutus says he was ambitious, And Brutus is an honourable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill; Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
(William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar III,2,81–90)
At the beginning Mark Antony’s words appear to be sincere enough: when he calls Brutus noble, stressing that Brutus is an honourable man, he seems to share the appreciation of the crowd, who celebrate Brutus for having liberated Rome from a dictator. He then slowly forces them to question their previous understanding of the situation when asking: “Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?” In revealing the contradiction between Brutus’ seemingly unfounded accusation and Caesar’s real achievements it becomes obvious that Mark Antony’s words are highly ironic. With his subtle use of irony, Mark Antony manipulates public opinion.
A literary description
“No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man […] and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on […].”
(From: Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Vol. I, Chapter I, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 1)
- Irony may also be based on the contrast of what is expected and what actually is.
- In introducing a heroine who is exactly the opposite of the stereotypical female in the romantic novel Jane Austen mocks the literary conventions of her time.
