Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity
This is the first book to offer an integrated reading of ancient Greek attitudes to laughter. Taking material from literature, myth, philosophy, religion and social mores, it analyses both the theory and the practice of laughter as a richly revealing expression ofGreek values and mentalities. Fr...
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| Materialtyp: | Bok |
| Språk: | English |
| Publicerad: |
Cambridge University Press
2013
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| Ämnen: | |
| Länkar: | https://scholar.dlu.edu.vn/thuvienso/handle/DLU123456789/36049 |
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| Thư viện lưu trữ: | Thư viện Trường Đại học Đà Lạt |
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| Sammanfattning: | This is the first book to offer an integrated reading of ancient Greek
attitudes to laughter. Taking material from literature, myth, philosophy,
religion and social mores, it analyses both the theory and the
practice of laughter as a richly revealing expression ofGreek values and
mentalities. From the exuberantly laughing gods of Homeric epic to
the condemnation of laughter by some early Church fathers, the subject
provides a fascinating means of investigating complex features of
cultural psychology. Greek society developed distinctive institutions
(including the symposium and certain religious festivals) 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, play and seriousness,
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
poetic and prose texts: ranging far beyond certain 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. |
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