Limbă, Literatură, Folclor

DOI: https://doi.org/10.52505/llf.2025.2.02

Abstract: This article aims to analyze Aureliu Busuioc’s collection of short prose O sumă de cuvinte, examining manifestations of irony as well as the artistic strategies through which the author ridicules human stupidity, social morals, greed, servility, incompetence, academic ethics, and political flaws. Beyond a brief overview of theoretical considerations related to the concept of irony, the study focuses on the mechanisms by which the author constructs and transforms equivocal messages into critical instruments specific to ironic discourse. It also highlights the manner in which Busuioc achieves a genuinely humorous prose within the Bessarabian literary context, while drawing on postmodern strategies of literary representation such as intertextuality. An aesthetic and axiological reassessment is thus proposed of Aureliu Busuioc’s short prose, which has been somewhat overshadowed by his more established literary works. Particular attention is paid to the humor and persuasive force of the texts, as well as to the issues addressed in certain punchlines, which appear to convey one thing while communicating something entirely different, leading to a ridicule of human flaws and certain moral stances, deflated through irony and sarcasm.

Keywords: irony, humorous prose, postmodernism, behavioral paradigms, Aureliu Busuioc.