The Ironic Vision in Modern Literature

I: The Evolution of Irony.- I: The Ironic Vision in Modern Literature.- 1. The “Etiology” of Irony.- 2. The Age of Irony.- 3. Morphology and Mutations of Literary Irony.- II: Tragic Irony: Ancient and Modern.- 1. Sophoclean Irony.- 2. Euripidean Irony.- 3. Tragic Irony on the Modern Scene.- II: The Philosophers Set the Stage for the Ironic Vision.- III: Schopenhauer: The Implicit Irony of Pessimism.- IV: The Dilemma of the Superman.- 1. Nietzschean Nihilism.- 2. Why Spake Zarathustra Thus?.- 3. Ironic Implications of Nietzsche’s Gospel.- III: Religious Irony.- V: Irony and the Religious Quest.- 1. The Paradox of Faith.- 2. The Irony of Kierkegaard.- 3. Dostoevski and the Irony of the Irrational.- VI: Death the Supreme Ironist.- 1. Tolstoy and the Death of Ivan Ilyitch.- 2. The Metaphysics of Death.- IV: Irony in Modern Poetry, Fiction, and Drama.- VII: Thomas Hardy the Cosmic Ironist.- 1. Scientific Pessimism and the Ironic Vision.- 2. Cosmic Irony in The Dynasts.- VIII: Anatole France and Aesthetic Irony.- 1. Aestheticism and Skepticism.- 2. Penguin Island.- 3. The Revolt of the Angels.- 4. Conclusion.- IX: Chekhov’s Naturalistic Irony.- 1. The Quality of Chekhovian Irony.- 2. Irony in Chekhov’s Plays.- X: Illusion Versus Reality.- 1. The Relativity of Truth.- 2. The Truth of Life.- 3. O’Neill and the Iceman Cometh.- V: Irony and the Diabolical.- XI: The Devil as Ironist.- 1. The Sources of the Diabolical.- 2. Dostoevski and the Devil.- 3. Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger.- 4. The Shavian Devil.- 5. Valéry and Mephistopheles.- XII: The Irony of Thomas Mann.- 1. The Schopenhauerian and Nietzschean Influence.- 2. Buddenbrooks.- 3. The Magic Mountain.- 4. Doctor Faustus.- VI: The Nihilism of the Absurd and the Absurdity of Art.- XIII: The Irony of the Absurd.- 1. The Metaphysical Basis of Nihilistic Irony.- 2. The Absurdist Hero.- 3. The Myth of the Absurd.- 4. The Literature of the Absurd.- 5. The Irony of Ionesco.- 6. Beckett’s Vision of the Absurd.- 7. The Absurdity of Art.- VII: Conclusion.- XIV: Conclusion.