Ironia no Rudens de Plauto

Abstract

In this paper we aim, first of all, to find the most suitable model to discuss the phenomenon of irony in Classical texts. Taking into consideration the theories developed by linguistic pragmatics we have adopted the so-called model of Usage-Mention. Subsequently, we approach the study of different examples of irony found in Plautus’s Rudens, by outlining a possible classification distribution and thereby attempting to look into the effectiveness of irony based on what could be called a “double simultaneous interpretation”.
This process accounts for the traditionally called dramatic irony.