I: The Evolution of Irony.- I: The Ironic Vision in Modern Literature.- II: Tragic Irony: Ancient and Modern.- II: The Philosophers Set the Stage for the Ironic Vision.- III: Schopenhauer: The Implicit Irony of Pessimism.- IV: The Dilemma of the Superman.- III: Religious Irony.- V: Irony and the Religious Quest.- VI: Death the Supreme Ironist.- IV: Irony in Modern Poetry, Fiction, and Drama.- VII: Thomas Hardy the Cosmic Ironist.- VIII: Anatole France and Aesthetic Irony.- IX: Chekhov’s Naturalistic Irony.- X: Illusion Versus Reality.- V: Irony and the Diabolical.- XI: The Devil as Ironist.- XII: The Irony of Thomas Mann.- VI: The Nihilism of the Absurd and the Absurdity of Art.- XIII: The Irony of the Absurd.- VII: Conclusion.- XIV: Conclusion.
