Ironia czasu i czas ironii w retorycznym ujęciu doświadczenia i dyskursu ponowoczesności

The irony of time and the time of irony in the rhetorical understanding of experience and its postmodern implications The article confronts two ways of conceptualizing time: one associated with the idea of human dignity, memory, and experientiality, the other with shaping the image of reality by mythicization and aestheticization. This divide serves as a theoretical foundation for the analysis of the testimonies of Shoah, among them Nachman Blumental’s Innocent Words. The research is based on rhetorical concepts of irony, from the ancient to postmodern times, with special focus on Paul de Man’s work. They are confronted with the initial divide: different rhetorical paradigms are connected to the two conceptualizations of time: the ethical and the aesthetical. The aestheticization of time results from an intellectual approach to the subjective experience. It is linked to the performative turn with its particular interpretation of the classical idea of human creativity. The performative practices of transgression show signposts of cognitive decline. The deterioration of the subjective aspect of time enables the work of irony. Understood as a rhetorical concept, irony can be perceived as a bridge between the two ways of approaching time: as a subjective experience and its discursive form. Such an interpretation is possible within the principles of the rhetorical turn.Irony can be interpreted in two ways: the first one would be close to mockery and the second to the ancient tradition of kalokagatia. Putting aside the categories of laughter and metaphor as means of acquiring knowledge and understanding the world, enables to see irony not only “as the trope of tropes”, but also “the perspective of perspectives”.