tragedy-irony

Updated: February 11, 2026

Now he lies in bed, an incurable idiot, smiling as he sees gold and sapphire fishes swimming in the water over his head.... That rarest of all English metres which Browning chose for One Word More is employed by Mr. Gibson in a compound of tragedy-irony called The Vindictive Staircase.

William Lyon Phelps - The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century