Plato's dialogues illustrate Socrates' teaching technique of questioning a student in order to draw out a correct response. This method later became known as "Socratic irony."
A famous example of dramatic irony occurs in Sophocles' play "Oedipus Rex." Oedipus, the ruler of Thebes, seeks the person who has brought about the destruction in the city. He does not know that he is the guilty party, by unknowingly marrying his own mother.
In medieval Europe, irony was understood to mean saying the opposite of what one really means. This concept developed a new meaning, as something not necessarily directed at someone but something observable that the artist could incorporate into his work.
English scholar Connop Thirlwall explained, in an article (1833) on Sophocles, that the sequence of events in a play may be understood one way by the characters in the play, who are unaware of the situation as it really exists. Dramatic irony heightens the suspense in a novel or play because the characters act without knowing the real situation.
While dramatic irony is often studied in literature and philosophy, it is less developed in studies of other media. A medium can be a tool for irony, such as television's "The Daily Show," which takes television footage out of context and develops it into its own fake news coverage, highlighting the limits of the television medium.