In my paper I argue that Bolesław Leśmian writing about the works of other authors made used the concept of irony he also put into practice in his own writing. In order to characterize it I describe various ways in which irony emerges from Leśmian’s literary criticism: in his commentary on the reviewed works and in his theoretical reflection, in his reading practice and metacritical texts. This analysis lets me understand Leśmian’s irony as a stylistic trope creating a literary poetics of dance, an aesthetic category as well as an artistic and existential position akin the permanent parabasis of the Romantics.