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Book Cover
E-book
Author Halliwell, Stephen.

Title Greek laughter : a study in cultural psychology from Homer to early Christianity / Stephen Halliwell
Published Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 2008

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 616 pages)
Contents Introduction: Greek laughter in theory and practice -- Inside and outside morality: the laughter of Homeric gods and men -- Sympotic elation and resistance to death -- Ritual laughter and the renewal of life -- Aischrology, shame and old comedy -- Greek philosophy and the ethics of ridicule -- Greek laughter and the problem of the absurd -- The intermittencies of laughter in Menander's social world -- Lucian and the laughter of life and death -- Laughter denied, laughter deferred: the antigelastic tendencies of early Christianity
Summary This is 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
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and indexes
Notes Print version record
Subject Laughter -- Greece -- History -- To 1500
PSYCHOLOGY -- Emotions.
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS -- Death, Grief, Bereavement.
Laughter
Greece
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780511437953
0511437951
9780511438622
0511438621
9780511483004
0511483007