Greek Laughter: A Study Of Cultural Psychology From Homer To Early Christianity
Cambridge University Press, 10/2/2008
EAN 9780521717748, ISBN10: 0521717744
Paperback, 630 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 3.6 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
The first book to offer an integrated reading of ancient Greek attitudes to laughter. Taking material from various genres and contexts, the book analyses both the theory and the practice of laughter as a revealing expression of Greek values and mentalities. Greek society developed distinctive institutions for the celebration of laughter as a capacity which could bridge the gap between humans and gods; but it also feared laughter for its power to expose individuals and groups to shame and even violence. Caught between ideas of pleasure and pain, friendship and enmity, laughter became a theme of recurrent interest in various contexts. Employing a sophisticated model of cultural history, Stephen Halliwell traces elaborations of the theme in a series of important texts: ranging far beyond modern accounts of 'humour', he shows how perceptions of laughter helped to shape Greek conceptions of the body, the mind and the meaning of life.
1. Introduction
2. Inside and outside morality
the laughter of Homeric gods and men
3. Sympotic elation and resistance to death
4. Ritual laughter and the renewal of life
5. Aischrology, shame and Old Comedy
6. Greek philosophy and the ethics of ridicule
7. Greek laughter and the problem of the absurd
8. The intermittencies of laughter in Menander's social world
9. Lucian and the laughter of life and death
10. Laughter denied, laughter deferred
the antigelastic tendencies of early Christianity
Appendix 1. The Greek (body) language of laughter and smiles
Appendix 2. Gelastic faces in visual art.