“All Honorable Men:” Irony, Performance, and Satirein William Shakespeare and Bob Dylan

Abstract

This article offers a comparative analysis of irony in the works of Bob Dylan and William Shakespeare, arguing that both authors deploy irony as a performative and critical mode of engagement. Drawing primarily on pragmatic and linguistic theories of irony, including Relevance Theory and subsequent developments by Clark and Garmendia, the study analyses how Shakespeare’s plays and Dylan’s songs exploit gaps between literal expression and implied meaning, as well as between appearance (literal or figurative) and reality. The discussion traces how local instances of verbal irony expand into broader structures of dramatic irony and, in both authors, develop into manifestations of Menippean satire, where parody, grotesque exaggeration, and carnivalesque reversals serve to destabilise cultural ideals. Particular attention is paid to performance, audience complicity, and the exposure of self-deception, shifting identities, and cultural mythologies. By situating Dylan in dialogue with Shakespeare’s dramatic practice and through examining Dylan’s ironic rewritings of Shakespearean figures and scenes, the article argues that irony emerges as a living, ever-changing practice central to literature’s power to unsettle authority.