Irony in R.A.K. Mason's Poetry

Abstract

Previously, the author has presented R.A.K. Mason as essentially a sensitive modern romantic at odds with the New Zealand where he spent his life from 1905-1971, and with, in a larger sense, not only man but also the universe itself. Concentrating on this side of his sensibility, the author has rather tended to ignore Mason's technique, and in the present essay he wishes to redress the balance somewhat by examining the kind of ironic devices Mason uses, and to what effect he puts them.