Abstract: The term Baroque irony is coined by Roland Barthes, which is considered to be representative in the so-called language turn. It represents the relationship between the signifieds within language rather than that between language and the outside world, and thus it questions language itself. The"Playful Fiction" demonstrate Baroque irony in terms of semantics, syntax, morphology and parody. Baroque irony is, the paper concludes, a kind of anti-metaphysical language that does not aim to convey fixed meanings but deconstructs them. It is an anti-rational language that brings readers to a world of texts where meanings coexist and interact. It is also an intransitive language that focuses only on itself and considers the materiality of language as the only reality.

Key words: Baroque irony, Roland Barthes, French "playful fiction", materiality of language