`:::In the book ``Irony`` from the series ``The Critical Idiom`` (edited by John D. Jump, published by Methuen, 1973), the author, D. C. Muecke, questions whether sarcasm is a form of irony: ``If it is a basic requirement of irony that we must feel the force of both the apparent and the real meanings, then sarcasm hardly exists as irony.  The sarcast's tone so unequivocally conveys his real meaning that there can be scarcely any pretence of being unaware of it.``   July 9, 2005 03:11 (UTC)  `