I know there are many places where we can find irony within Shakespeare's plays, but off the stage, do we know how prevalent irony and sarcasm was in common speech during that time?
This is a great question but I sense it may be better in AskLinguists. Any sort of historical account on the varying uses of sarcasm, particularly in a political context, would be appreciated by myself and hopefully others so if there are any experts who spot this some further signposting would be great.