We may take as our starting-point an article by Batts in which he expresses reservations about invoking irony in the interpretation of medieval literature. His doubts are two. On the one hand irony is for him so intangible that it is difficult or impossible to tell when it is actually meant, whilst on the other he questions the very justification of expecting to find ironic ambiguity in medieval literature. The aim of this chapter is to suggest that it is both valid to expect irony in the courtly romance and possible to detect cases where it is employed.

Rhetorical considerations

The case for expecting to find irony can best be argued by reference to the rhetorical nature of so much medieval literature, for rhetoric attributed an established place to irony, whilst most of the poets with whom we are concerned are known to be rhetorically schooled and therefore theoretically aware of the possibilities of irony. Of the classical origins of the term and concept irony it can be said that the rhetorical tradition, with its definition of irony as a derisive mode of speech which says one thing while meaning the opposite, was of decisive importance.