paradox, a statement or expression so surprisingly self‐contradictory as to provoke us into seeking another sense or context in which it would be true (although some paradoxes cannot be resolved into truths, remaining flatly self‐contradictory, e.g. Everything I say is a lie). Wordsworth's line ‘The Child is father of the Man’ and Shakespeare's ‘the truest poetry is the most feigning’ are notable literary examples. Ancient theorists of rhetoric described paradox as a figure of speech, but 20th‐century critics have given it a higher importance as a mode of understanding by which poetry challenges our habits of thought. Paradox was cultivated especially by poets of the 17th century, often in the verbally compressed form of oxymoron. It is also found in the prose epigram; and is pervasive in the literature of Christianity, a notoriously paradoxical religion. In a wider sense, the term may also be applied to a person or situation characterized by striking contradictions. A person who utters paradoxes is a paradoxer.
Grammar Dictionary: paradox
A statement that seems contradictory or absurd but is actually valid or true. According to one proverbial paradox, we must sometimes be cruel in order to be kind. Another form of paradox is a statement that truly is contradictory and yet follows logically from other statements that do not seem open to objection. If someone says, “I am lying,” for example, and we assume that his statement is true, it must be false. The paradox is that the statement “I am lying” is false if it is true.
Paradox in literature
The paradox as a literary device has been defined as an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unorthodox insight. It functions as a method of literary analysis which involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.[3]
Literary or rhetorical paradoxes abound in the works of Oscar Wilde and G. K. Chesterton; other literature deals with paradox of situation. Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Borges, and Chesterton are all concerned with episodes and narratives designed around paradoxes. Statements such as Wilde’s “I can resist anything except temptation” and Chesterton’s “spies do not look like spies” are examples of rhetorical paradox. Further back, Polonius’ observation in Hamlet that “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t” is a memorable third.[3]
A taste for paradox is central to the philosophies of Lao Tzu, Heraclitus, Meister Eckhardt, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Tom Robbins, among many others.
The paradox as a literary device has been defined as an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unorthodox insight. It functions as a method of literary analysis which involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.
Literary or rhetorical paradoxes abound in the works of Oscar Wilde and G. K. Chesterton; other literature deals with paradox of situation. Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Borges, and Chesterton are all concerned with episodes and narratives designed around paradoxes. Statements such as Wilde’s “I can resist anything except temptation” and Chesterton’s “spies do not look like spies” are examples of rhetorical paradox. Further back, Polonius’ observation in Hamlet that “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t” is a memorable third.[
they are unrelated, different than that they sound particularly alike. A paradox is a self-conflicting fact. A parody is a satire ("deliver-up) of something. working example, it rather is a paradox which you force on a expressway yet park on a driveway. If I imitate you in an exaggerated way, making relaxing of your mannerisms, i'm satirizing you.
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paradox, a statement or expression so surprisingly self‐contradictory as to provoke us into seeking another sense or context in which it would be true (although some paradoxes cannot be resolved into truths, remaining flatly self‐contradictory, e.g. Everything I say is a lie). Wordsworth's line ‘The Child is father of the Man’ and Shakespeare's ‘the truest poetry is the most feigning’ are notable literary examples. Ancient theorists of rhetoric described paradox as a figure of speech, but 20th‐century critics have given it a higher importance as a mode of understanding by which poetry challenges our habits of thought. Paradox was cultivated especially by poets of the 17th century, often in the verbally compressed form of oxymoron. It is also found in the prose epigram; and is pervasive in the literature of Christianity, a notoriously paradoxical religion. In a wider sense, the term may also be applied to a person or situation characterized by striking contradictions. A person who utters paradoxes is a paradoxer.
Grammar Dictionary: paradox
A statement that seems contradictory or absurd but is actually valid or true. According to one proverbial paradox, we must sometimes be cruel in order to be kind. Another form of paradox is a statement that truly is contradictory and yet follows logically from other statements that do not seem open to objection. If someone says, “I am lying,” for example, and we assume that his statement is true, it must be false. The paradox is that the statement “I am lying” is false if it is true.
Paradox in literature
The paradox as a literary device has been defined as an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unorthodox insight. It functions as a method of literary analysis which involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.[3]
Literary or rhetorical paradoxes abound in the works of Oscar Wilde and G. K. Chesterton; other literature deals with paradox of situation. Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Borges, and Chesterton are all concerned with episodes and narratives designed around paradoxes. Statements such as Wilde’s “I can resist anything except temptation” and Chesterton’s “spies do not look like spies” are examples of rhetorical paradox. Further back, Polonius’ observation in Hamlet that “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t” is a memorable third.[3]
A taste for paradox is central to the philosophies of Lao Tzu, Heraclitus, Meister Eckhardt, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Tom Robbins, among many others.
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The paradox as a literary device has been defined as an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unorthodox insight. It functions as a method of literary analysis which involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.
Literary or rhetorical paradoxes abound in the works of Oscar Wilde and G. K. Chesterton; other literature deals with paradox of situation. Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Borges, and Chesterton are all concerned with episodes and narratives designed around paradoxes. Statements such as Wilde’s “I can resist anything except temptation” and Chesterton’s “spies do not look like spies” are examples of rhetorical paradox. Further back, Polonius’ observation in Hamlet that “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t” is a memorable third.[
they are unrelated, different than that they sound particularly alike. A paradox is a self-conflicting fact. A parody is a satire ("deliver-up) of something. working example, it rather is a paradox which you force on a expressway yet park on a driveway. If I imitate you in an exaggerated way, making relaxing of your mannerisms, i'm satirizing you.