Hi Jbergsman and IrmgardM: heres my initial response to your well-put

question.
As a working definition of irony, lets start with the OEDs definition, which is:
"the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies
the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/99565?rskey=kTyEfP&result=1#eid
As a quick preface to the discussion of narrative levels that follows, this
website, and its summary of narrative levels could be a valuable reference:
http://wikis.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Narrative_Levels There is in
fact an entire branch of literary theory/criticism called narratology, which
studies the structure of narratives and their presentation/representation.
Anyway, back to teasing out the ironic structure of the Inferno. The guided
material frames the ironic structure of the Inferno in terms of the distinction
b/w Date the Pilgrim and Dante the Poet/Creator of the Inferno. The
narrative of Dante the Pilgrim would take place at the diegetic level, that is,
in the terms of contemplative reading, the literal level.
So as the image in the guided material indicates, the journey of Dante the
Pilgrim is a descent, a witnessing of the intensification of Sin, metaphorized
in the descent through hell. And paraphrasing the guide: the decent
>intensification of Sin> a moving away from the Other.
However, Dante the Poet, and his spiritual journey is one of conversion and
eventual ascent, a recognition of the need of the Other, and perhaps the
most intense relation to the Other, the need for forgiveness.
So, the above description/juxtaposition is ironic because we can interpret the
narration of the intensification of Sin (Dante Pilrgrim) as expressing its
opposite, a conversion to the need for forgiveness (Poet Dante).
Now, this interpretation of the ironic structure of the Inferno in terms of
sin/forgiveness, moving away/toward the Other, is but one way to see this
relation, and is open to other interpretations. What is a narrative fact is
that Dante duplicates/blurs the narrator and the narratee (what/who is
narrated), that is to say, the Dantes of the Pilgrim and the Poet.
But then the question becomes how does he do this? I am very interested in
this aspect of the Inferno. As I termed it in my greeting post to the course,
this phenomenon of duplicated or blurred narrators/levels of narration is
what I call the poetic performance of the text. So then, what is poetic
performance? or better yet, how does the Inferno, through what techniques
does the text, perform Dante the Pilgrim and Dante the Poet?
The guide offers one way: More specifically, we can understand the

relationship between these two lines of ironic development in the single

narrative of the Inferno by recognizing that, as the pilgrim witnesses the
growth of sin as a progressive, organic dynamic of refusal of the need of the
other, the poet uses the articulation of that refusal, literally through the very
words by which the souls of the damned tell their stories to the pilgrim and
through his responses, to articulate the process of conversion which the
pilgrim is simultaneously undergoing.
There are others as well: the interpolations/invocations of the Poet Dante
written right into the canti of the Inferno such as :
in the first line of the poem with its use of the first-person plural point of
view in Midway in the journey of our life"
interruptions of the chronological flows of the diegetic narrative, i.e. the
story of the decent. The first instance of this takes place at the
beginning of Canto VIII Canto
direct addresses to the Reader: e.g. 94-96, Canto VIII. For a complete list
of the instances where Dante issues direct address to the Reader,
please see the Hollander notes for those same lines 94-96, Canto VIII.
I hope this outline helped, as this is indeed a very complex and interesting
topic. Please let me know if you have questions or thoughts to offer! Id love
to hear more about what you think about this aspect of the Inferno and what
its effects as a narrative technique might have on you as the Reader
(already you might see how the same doubling/differentiating structure that
takes place between the Reader and you, your actual self, is analogous
to the doubling of Dante the Pilgrim and Dante the Poet).
-- Joe, TA