THE COGNITIVE JOURNEY

 An examination of Shaw’s ironic thought during the war is instructiveon a number of levels. For those of us interested in creative developmentand in cognitive semantics, Shaw’s case provides an example of how ironycan function in creative thinking. This is new territory. Case study research,using the Evolving Systems approach, has focused on the roles of metaphorin creative thinking (e.g., Gruber, 1974/1981, 1978; Osowski, 1989), but noton irony
The historical context of Shaw’s irony is also important. Some of hisironic views may be considered examples of WWI historian Paul Fussell’s(1975/2000) thesis: “that there seems to be one dominating form of modernunderstanding; that it is essentially ironic; and that it originates largelyin the application of mind and memory to the events of the Great War”(p. 35). Shaw’s thinking at the beginning of WWI also stands in contrastto the sense of regret that has characterized that legacy of irony. Shaw’sirony was initially used largely to analyze strategies, see through preju-dice, predict outcomes and formulate proposals. Fussell refers to an ironicunderstanding that comes, in part, from so many of those prejudices beingacted out, so many of the predictions being true.Our own understanding of Shaw’s irony is also part of the 20th-century legacy. Much of this study examines Shaw’s clearly marked—i.e.,overt—irony for which least interpretation is necessary. But, inescapably,this study is also an interpretive link across time, a link in which bothShaw’s sense of irony and our own come into play. Indeed, today’s con-cepts of irony are among the defining elements of the journey. 

THE CHALLENGE OF IRONY

 At the beginning of his influential typology of irony, literary critic D. C.Muecke (1969) wrote:Getting to grips with irony seems to have something in common withgathering mist; there is plenty to take hold of if only one could. To at-tempt a taxonomy of a phenomenon so nebulous that it disappears asone approaches is an even more desperate adventure. Yet if, upon ex-amination, irony becomes less nebulous, as it does, it remains elusivelyProtean (p. 3).With quixotic valor Muecke then went on to delineate an extensive andinfluential typology. Part of his inspiration for taking on that challengewas the expansion of the concept of irony, which grew in breadth andimportance over the course of the 20th century.The Expanding ConceptThe opening line ofCommon Sensewas overt irony. Shaw began hisessay with a quote from Graham Wallas:Let a European War break out—the war, perhaps, between the TripleAlliance and the Triple Entente, which so many journalists and politi-cians in England and Germany contemplate with criminal levity. If thecombatants prove to be equally balanced, it may, after the first battles,