Functions of irony in the Middle English poem Patience — a fourteenth-century alliterative retelling of the biblical story of Jonah, between laughter and the discipline of endurance.
The article explores the poetics of irony in the Middle English poem Patience, a distinctive reinterpretation of the biblical story of Jonah and an important example of fourteenth-century alliterative poetry. Despite the growing scholarly interest in irony in medieval literature, the functioning of irony in Middle English religious poetry remains insufficiently investigated. The relevance of the study lies in the need to achieve a deeper understanding of the ways medieval authors combined didactic, religious, and comic-ironic elements, as well as to clarify the role of irony in the formation of medieval poetic consciousness.
The aim of this article is to distinguish types and functions of irony in Patience, to trace the mechanisms through which its ironic effects are created, and to examine what ideas are conveyed by the poet through irony. Particular attention is paid to verbal irony, irony of situation, dramatic irony, and the narrator's self-irony, as well as to the stylistic devices that reinforce ironic meaning. To achieve these objectives, the study relies on the method of close reading together with elements of stylistic analysis and comparative analysis. The comparative approach makes it possible to contrast the treatment of Jonah and selected narrative episodes in Patience, the biblical Book of Jonah, and the Latin fragment Carmen de Iona Propheta.
The research demonstrates that the unknown author of Patience considerably intensifies the ironic potential already present in the biblical narrative. Unlike the Latin tradition, which emphasizes primarily the theological dimension of the prophetic mission, the Middle English poet foregrounds Jonah's human imperfection, fears, emotional instability, and inability to comprehend divine design. The study reveals that irony in the poem operates on several interconnected levels. Verbal irony is realized through the use of words in opposite meanings, feigned approval, and the interaction of literal and figurical senses. Irony of situation emerges from the discrepancy between Jonah's expectations and the actual consequences of his actions, since every attempt to avoid danger only worsens his condition. Dramatic irony is created through the reader's familiarity with the biblical plot, which makes it possible to perceive contradictions hidden from the protagonist himself. An important role is also played by the narrator's self-irony, which combines moral and religious reflection with references to personal poverty and human weakness.
The article further demonstrates that the ironic effect in Patience is reinforced through the active use of antithesis, antonymy, repetition, parallelism, semantic contrast, and the interaction between literal and figurative meanings. Irony in the poem performs an interpretative function: it enables the poet simultaneously to expose human limitation and to affirm the necessity of patience, humility, and acceptance of divine will. The findings of the study contribute to a more precise understanding of Patience within the tradition of medieval ironic poetics and demonstrate that irony constituted an important element of artistic thinking in medieval English literature.
Grasping irony in fourteenth-century poetry is a challenge of distance — yet one worth attempting, for it reveals both the strangeness and the surprising familiarity of the medieval mind.
Though distancing from a complex and multifaceted object generally provides a better perspective on it, a gap of more than six hundred years may involve too great a degree of change. Thus, grasping irony in fourteenth-century poetry can be challenging: numerous shifts in literary conventions and mentality since that time prevent us from seeing the whole picture and interpreting it according to the author's intention. But it is certainly worth trying as closer attention to artifacts of medieval literature, the use of irony there in particular, will deepen our understanding of how literary history evolved and allow us to notice, besides differences, surprising similarities with modern ways of thinking.
In recent decades, medieval studies have increasingly turned toward phenomena that earlier criticism often associated primarily with modern literature, among them irony. Far from being merely an ornamental rhetorical device, irony in medieval texts frequently reflects fundamental tensions within the medieval worldview itself: the discrepancy between human understanding and divine providence, between earthly expectations and transcendent truth, between the visible order of things and their spiritual meaning. As Green observes, medieval authors possessed a clear awareness of ironic incongruity even if they did not conceptualize it through the modern terminology of situational irony [Green, 2009, pp. 8–9]. Likewise, Reiss argues that irony was deeply embedded in medieval consciousness because medieval culture itself perceived human existence as fundamentally paradoxical within the framework of divine creation [Reiss, 1981, pp. 211–212]. Such observations have encouraged scholars to reconsider medieval religious literature no longer as monologically didactic, but as aesthetically complex and intellectually flexible.
Research into irony in medieval literature has expanded considerably across different national traditions. Studies by Green [1979], S. Gaunt [1989], Knox [1989], and Reiss [1981] have demonstrated that medieval rhetorical theory inherited sophisticated understandings of irony from classical tradition and adapted them to Christian modes of thought. Recent scholarship has also explored irony in various medieval literary corpora, including Middle Irish, German, and Chaucerian literature, revealing that medieval irony could function simultaneously as humour, moral instruction, philosophical reflection, and critique of human limitations [Birney, 1985; Boyle, 2021; Classen, 2014]. Yet despite this growing scholarly interest, irony in Middle English religious poetry remains comparatively underexplored, especially in works outside the central canon of Chaucer studies.
One such text is the alliterative poem Patience, surviving with three companions in a single fourteenth-century manuscript, copied — it is believed — by a single anonymous scribe.
Written in Middle English alliterative verse, Patience survives, together with three other alliterative poems, in a single manuscript—Cotton Nero A.x., which scholars dated to the latter half of the fourteenth century. Their authorship remains unknown. The prominence of alliteration in these works reflects a broader fourteenth-century English poetic trend commonly referred to as the Alliterative Revival.
elegiac dream-vision
homiletic exempla
the retelling of Jonah
chivalric romance
As Bernau observes, of the four poems in Cotton Nero A.x, Patience, the retelling of the biblical book of Jonah, has attracted the least scholarly attention [Bernau, 2018, p. 170]. Retelling the biblical story of Jonah, Patience combines homiletic purpose with vivid characterization, dramatic narrative movement, and unexpectedly flexible tonal shifts. Although the poem is overtly didactic in advocating the virtue of patience, its treatment of Jonah repeatedly introduces comic, ironic, and even self-ironic elements that complicate straightforward moral interpretation. The poem presents a prophet who fears suffering, misunderstands divine intention, attempts to escape God through entirely human logic, and repeatedly becomes trapped by the consequences of his own reasoning. Such representation creates a productive tension between sacred narrative and profoundly human imperfection.
The aim of this article is to distinguish types and functions of irony in Patience, to trace the mechanisms through which its ironic effects are created, and to examine what ideas are conveyed by the poet through irony. To achieve these objectives, the author relies on the method of close reading together with elements of stylistic analysis, and compares some episodes of Jonah's story in Patience with a much earlier version found in Carmen de Iona Propheta, a fragment sometimes attributed to Tertullian. Patience is cited in the original Middle English [Gollancz, 1913], accompanied by a prose translation into Modern English [Gillespie et al., 2007].
Before turning to the poem, it is necessary to consider what medieval theorists and authors actually meant by irony — a trope well-known, broadly understood, and rooted in a worldview that perceived existence itself as paradoxical.
Irony as a trope was well-known in the Middle Ages. Its discussion by Quintilian in his Institutio Oratoria gave rise to a tradition which Gaunt traces through Donatus, Bede, Isidore of Seville, Julian of Toledo, Gervase of Melkley and Hugh of St Victor [Gaunt, 1989, p. 6]. Within this tradition, irony was regarded as a type of allegory, "allegory" being an umbrella term which encompassed a range of other tropes together with allegory proper. Both tropes—allegory and irony—say one thing meaning another one, and Green, trying to emphasize a difference between them, concludes that whereas allegory establishes a correspondence between statement and meaning, irony insinuates a contrast [Green, 1979, p. 7].
According to Knox, Donatus defined irony as a trope expressing what it intends through its opposite, and a similar definition is repeated by Bede and other theorists [Knox, 1989, p. 9]. But the notion of opposites could be understood in various ways and include four types distinguished by Aristotle: contraries, contradictions, relatives (father—son, double—half), and privation/possession (sight—blindness). Thus, the contrast between what was said and what was meant could be of multiple kinds. Knox also notes the adaptability of ironia: it could be combined with different figures and tropes — Erasmus referred to this adaptability as a "stroll" through the figures and tropes [Knox, 1989, pp. 38–39].
Rowland identifies the irony of manner, in which the narrator (as distinct from the poet) assumes a position inferior to that of the audience and wears this mask to mentor them. A comparable narrator is found in Piers Plowman, where he consistently demonstrates a lack of understanding during his spiritual quest [Rowland, 1985].
Reiss finds the grounds of medieval literary irony in an "essentially ironic" perception of the world. Ambiguity, word play and antithetical expressions are not superficial marks injected by the writer; they are the verbal effects of an ironic worldview that stemmed from man's recognition of his place in creation — not a challenge to God, but an acceptance of human inadequacy [Reiss, 1981].
Reiss also stresses that this worldview involved a perception of art as an inherently ironic activity: God had created things in their diversity and multiplicity, making even seemingly incompatible elements coexist; in their turn, artists in their limited ability could only approximate this process, imitating it by juxtaposing incongruous things [Reiss, 1981, pp. 214–216]. As can be seen, medieval theorists and authors had a broad perception of irony, and a variety of means at their disposal to create the effect.
Patience is a frame narrative which uses the form of a homily with the story of Jonah as an exemplum occupying the majority of the poem — beginning and ending with the same line.
The topic established in the frame is advocating the virtue of patience. Having started as a moralist, the poet eventually distances himself from the authoritative position and switches to that of an ordinary human being. He says that patience is one of eight beatitudes about which "I herde on a halyday, at a hy3e masse" ("I heard on a holy day, at a solemn mass")—which means that he is not a preacher. Mentioning poverty as spiritual humility, the narrator suddenly pivots to material deprivation ("Bot [s]yn I am put to a poynt Þat pouerte hatte" / "But since I am reduced to a condition that is called poverty"; st. 35). So, the presence of two senses creates a semantic play based on the contrast between spiritual and material, producing a subtle ironic tension. This self-irony brings the narrator to the same level as the audience, whom he invites to share in the moral lesson.
Another argument the narrator uses to justify patience is the futility of resisting inevitable fate. This reference to a superior figure serves as a kind of "glue," integrating the story of Jonah, who, in valuing his own life, refused to obey his Lord:
In Middle English "jape" meant "a trick, deceit, fraud, fraudulent excuse" [Lewis et al., 2018]. This burlesque detail, lowering the portrayal of Jonah, sets the tone of narration about the prophet's ordeal. The narrator reveals the outcome of this trick before recounting the story in detail, yet readers familiar with the Vulgate could already foresee it. The discrepancy between Jonah's horizon of knowledge at different stages of the narrative and that of the audience creates dramatic irony.
It has been observed that the Book of Jonah originally contains some humorous episodes. Hurlbert points to the exaggerated repentance in Nineveh, where even the animals are donning sackcloth, and notes that the ship being worried about breaking up and the piety of the pagans outmatching that of the Lord's prophet are suggestive of humorous irony [Hulbert, 2023, p. 87]. The author of Patience not only perceived this humour, but deliberately amplified the latent irony by adding his own details.
In Patience, God, suddenly addressing Jonah "with a roghlych rurd rowned in his ere" ("with a harsh sound whispered in his ear"; st. 64), commands him to go and announce His imminent vengeance to the Ninevites. But Jonah is afraid, because God's description of these people intimidates him. In a monologue he shares his fears with the reader — that the traitors will seize him, confine him in a prison, put him in the stocks, torture him in a foot-shackle, and pluck out his eyes. This depiction of torture recalls the "tradition of literary sadism" traced by Birney in Anglo-Saxon literature and later works [Birney, 1985, pp. 21–23].
This verbal irony arises from Jonah's perception of the situation. Yet the Vulgate does not mention any of the exaggerated torments imagined by Jonah; the reader might perceive his imagination as excessively vivid. By mentioning the rood on which the blood-thirsty Ninevites might crucify the prophet, the poet alludes to the exegetical tradition of reading Jonah as a type for Christ. And it is difficult to disagree with Lee that Jonah is portrayed "rather as an anti-type: a 'saviour' who flees from the possibility of being crucified" [Lee, 1982, p. 198]. Thus, the author adds touches of parody which serve not to ridicule and disparage but to assert.
In Carmen de Iona Propheta, considered here for the sake of contrast, the reason for the flight is explained differently: the Lord is merciful and tends to forgive the repentant, and if the Ninevites are forgiven, Jonah's words will seem false. The author does not explore the potential of the biblical plot for humor, irony, or satire in Jonah's line of reasoning. But in Patience, Jonah tries to escape in order to save his life—not his reputation.
Jonah finds a ship and intends to reach Tarshish. Then follows a description of the crew's workmanship in setting sail, which is neither found in the Vulgate nor in pseudo-Tertullian's text — a succession of verb phrases intended to create parallelism to the enumeration of the imagined torments. In this context the actions of the ship's crew acquire positive connotation, offering hope in contrast to the destructive actions of the Ninevites. But the irony of situation lies in the fact that the optimistic prospect will eventually turn to the opposite—lead Jonah to suffering.
"Watz neuer so joyful a Jue as Jonas watz Þenne" — "There was never so joyful a Jew as then was Jonah" (st. 109).
"Hit watz a joyles gyn Þat Jonas watz inne" — "it was a joyless craft that Jonah was in" (st. 146).
The poet contrasts Jonah's situations on embarking and during the storm through derivational antonyms—the adjectives "joyful" and "joyless." It is interesting that in the second case the adjective describes the ship, not Jonah's feelings: he himself becomes joyless not in this dangerous situation, but later, when God forgives the Ninevites.
Jonah hopes God will not search for him at sea, supposing "that the Being who established all the world had no power to harm any man on that sea." The irony of the situation develops into dramatic irony, supported by a rephrased passage from Psalm 93 emphasizing God's omnipotence and omniscience. A significant idea the narrator extracts from the psalm is God's capacity for sight:
The amplification of the blindness / sight opposition creates focus on the absurdity of Jonah's reasoning: he attributes to God Almighty a human limitation in overcoming distance. In his attempt to act wisely Jonah only makes a fool of himself. Ironically, every attempt Jonah makes to save himself only serves to worsen his predicament, as he is not in control of the situation. And God has to play a kind of "I see you" game with the prophet, exposing the futility of his efforts and correcting his behaviour in a parental manner.
God summons two winds, Eurus and Aquilon, and commands them to blow upon the waters. The winds fulfill God's command more eagerly than the unreliable Jonah does, and a storm arises quickly. The Vulgate does not offer a detailed description of the storm; Carmen de Iona Propheta does, but the depiction in Patience cannot be regarded as a direct borrowing, as it differs in various details.
The storm begins a gradual dismantling of the "joyless" ship, in a sequence that seems to reverse the preparations made before the voyage. The crew throw everything overboard and scoop out the water. The poet's remark that the sailors were anxious to save themselves forms a parallel to Jonah's intentions: "for however wretched a man's way of life may be, life itself is still sweet" (st. 156). Here the author presents the instinct for survival in a serious light, without humour, as both natural and excusable.
In Patience the crew pray to their gods—Vernagu, Diana, Neptune, Mahomet, Margot, the moon and the sun—but nothing helps. The poet interrupts his serious treatment of the topic by introducing a comic detail: the roaring of the sea outside is accompanied by Jonah's snoring inside. In Carmen de Iona Propheta the sailors are merely surprised by the incongruity of someone sleeping in such a dangerous situation; in Patience, however, Jonah is reduced to a farcical figure when the steersman kicks him with his foot and bids him jump up.
When the sailors start inquiring of Jonah, they use the same word the prophet himself used to describe the Ninevites— "schrewe" (st. 197), meaning villain. This reference puts Jonah on the same plank with them: the poet seems to be ironically playing with the idea that the one who accuses shares similarities with the accused. After Jonah confesses his sin and the sailors finally cast him into the sea, the tempest ceases and the ship reaches land safely.
Inside the fish, the poet reemphasizes the theme established at the beginning of the poem: refusal to be humble and endure leads to more suffering. The poet attaches to Jonah the ironic label of a man unwilling to suffer harm, showing how his attempt at self-preservation leads paradoxically to greater misery. And his whole escape is literally in vain, as after fleeing he is spat out by the fish in a region "Þat he renayed hade" ("he had [previously] renounced"; st. 344), signifying his return to the initial position.
When the whole city of Nineveh repents, God grants His forgiveness. Jonah, "as wroth as Þe wynde" ("as wrathful as the wind"; st. 410), now offers a different reason for his flight, arguing that he had known in advance that God's mercy would spare the Ninevites — conveniently omitting his earlier fear that they might torment and kill him. God then teaches Jonah a lesson, causing lush greenery to grow which comforts him, only to destroy it the next night. This demonstrates to Jonah, devastated by the loss of something he did not even create, how dear creation is to God, and how His mercy stems from this fact.
The author tends to partially disagree with Birney, who remarks on Patience as an example of how "it was in comedy that the dramatic ironist of medieval England felt most at home" [Birney, 1985, p. 26]. Certainly, there are comic episodes — but ultimately the poem is pierced with sad philosophical irony, resulting from an understanding of the human condition: happiness is uncertain, the future remains unpredictable, and therefore the only remedy is patience. God's reply, with its imagery of ragged clothing which must be sewn together (but not replaced), establishes a subtle link to the poet's return to his own material poverty — a lowering device repeated from the beginning of the poem, supporting the effect of the narrator's self-irony.
Across the narrative, "every attempt to avoid danger only worsens his condition." This step line traces that thesis as an illustrative arc of the prophet's deepening entanglement in the very plan he seeks to flee.
Illustrative interpretation of the article's claim (qualitative, ordinal scale) — not a numerical measurement from the text.
The study identifies four kinds of irony operating together in the poem, each created by distinct mechanisms yet woven into a single ironic texture.
Realized through the use of words in meanings opposite to their apparent sense, through feigned approval, and through the contrast between literal and figurative meanings. Jonah uses a positively-coloured adjective to denote its opposite.
"Þis is a meruayl message…" — a "marvellous" message that is anything but.
Emerges from the discrepancy between Jonah's expectations and the actual consequences of his actions: every attempt to escape danger only increases his suffering and further entangles him in the divine plan from which he seeks to flee.
The hopeful set-sail turns to storm; the bower of escape becomes a bower of filth.
Created through the audience's presumed familiarity with the biblical plot, which makes readers constantly aware of the futility of Jonah's reasoning and lets them perceive contradictions invisible to the character himself.
The narrator reveals the trick's outcome before the tale unfolds.
By repeatedly lowering elevated moral discourse to the level of his own material poverty and human weakness, the narrator avoids an entirely authoritative position and establishes a flexible, human relationship with the audience.
From spiritual humility to "the condition that is called poverty."
The ironic effect is reinforced through a wide range of stylistic and structural devices that expose contradictions between Jonah's intentions and reality.
Set beside the biblical Book of Jonah and the Latin Carmen de Iona Propheta, the Middle English poem deliberately foregrounds the contradictions of human reasoning — shifting emphasis from theology toward ordinary human anxiety.
Where the Latin tradition treats Jonah's refusal primarily in theological terms, Patience amplifies the latent comic and ironic dimensions while preserving the narrative's moral seriousness.
Relative emphasis as analyzed in the article on a qualitative scale (Strong · Moderate · Minimal), derived from the author's explicit comparative observations — not quantitative data from the texts.
The comparative analysis reveals that the Middle English poet deliberately foregrounds those aspects of the story that expose the contradictions of human reasoning. While the earlier Latin text treats Jonah's refusal primarily in theological terms — presenting his fear that the prophecy might remain unfulfilled if God forgives the Ninevites — Patience shifts the emphasis toward Jonah's ordinary human anxieties and instinct for self-preservation. As a result, the prophet is portrayed not as an elevated and consistently authoritative biblical figure, but as a profoundly fallible human being whose attempts to avoid suffering repeatedly place him in even more painful and humiliating situations.
The analysis of Patience demonstrates that irony constitutes one of the central principles organizing the poem's poetics and shaping its interpretation of the biblical story of Jonah. The author significantly intensifies the ironic potential already present in the biblical Book of Jonah, transforming a relatively concise scriptural narrative into a psychologically nuanced and tonally flexible poetic work.
The poet foregrounds Jonah's human imperfection and intensifies the comic and ironic dimensions latent in Scripture.
Jonah's errors and fears are not so much ridiculed as presented as manifestations of universal human limitation.
Irony enables the poet to expose human weakness and to affirm the necessity of humility and patience at once.
The study confirms that the irony of Patience should not be reduced to simple satire or ridicule. Its irony ultimately reflects a specifically medieval understanding of human existence: an awareness of the disproportion between human knowledge and divine omniscience, and of the inability of human beings to fully comprehend providential order — the basis of the medieval ironic world view which Reiss writes about [Reiss, 1981, pp. 211–213].
The findings therefore suggest that Patience occupies an important place in the tradition of medieval ironic writing, demonstrating that Middle English religious literature could employ sophisticated ironic strategies while remaining deeply engaged with spiritual and theological concerns. Further research into irony in other alliterative poems, particularly Pearl and Piers Plowman, may help broaden understanding of how medieval English poets used irony as a mode of contemplating divine mystery, human suffering, and the instability of worldly experience.