Greek Laughter and Tears : : Antiquity and After / / Margaret Alexiou, Douglas Cairns.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Complete eBook-Package 2017
• VerfasserIn: Alexiou, Margaret,; Cairns, Douglas,
• MitwirkendeR: Agapitos, Panagiotis,; Alexiou, Margaret,; Angold, Michael,; Ashbrook Harvey, Susan,; Beaton, Roderick,; Beta, Simone,; Boeck, Elena,; Cairns, Douglas,; Halliwell, Stephen,; Herrin, Judith,; Hinterberger, Martin,; Holton, David,; Maciver, Calum,; Marciniak, Przemysław,; Mullett, Margaret,; Nilsson, Ingela,; Papadogiannakis, Ioannis,; Pizzone, Aglae,; Seaford, Richard,; Stavrakopoulou, Anna,; Stenger, Jan R.,; Walker, Alicia,; Webb, Ruth,; West, Stephanie,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Edinburgh Leventis Studies : ELS
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (504 p.) :; 30 B/W illustrations 1 B/W tables

Explores the range and complexity of human emotions and their transmission across cultural traditionsWhat makes us laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time? How do these two primal, seemingly discrete and non-verbal modes of expression intersect in everyday life and ritual, and what range of emotions do they evoke? How may they be voiced, shaped and coloured in literature and liturgy, art and music?Bringing together scholars from diverse periods and disciplines of Hellenic and Byzantine studies, this volume explores the shifting shapes and functions of laughter and tears. With a focus on the tragic, the comic and the tragicomic dimensions of laughter and tears in art, literature and performance, as well as on their emotional, socio-cultural and religious significance, it breaks new ground in the study of ancient and Byzantine affectivity.Key featuresIncludes an international cast of 25 distinguished contributors Prominence is given to performative arts and to interactions with other cultures Transitions from Late Antiquity to Byzantium, and from Byzantium to the Renaissance, form focal points from which contributors look backwards, forwards and sidewaysHighlights the variety, audacity and quality of the finest Byzantine works and the extent to which they anticipated the renaissance

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Notes on Contributors -- 1 Introduction -- PART I ANCIENT KEYNOTES: FROM HOMER TO LUCIAN -- 2 Laughter and Tears in Early Greek Literature -- 3 Imagining Divine Laughter in Homer and Lucian -- 4 Parody, Symbol and the Literary Past in Lucian -- PART II ANCIENT MODELS, BYZANTINE COLLECTIONS: EPIGRAMS, RIDDLES AND JOKES -- 5 ‘Tantalus Ever in Tears’: The Greek Anthology as a Source of Emotions in Late Antiquity -- 6 ‘Do You Think You’re Clever? Solve This Riddle, Then!’ The Comic Side of Byzantine Enigmatic Poetry -- 7 Philogelos: An Anti-Intellectual Joke-Book -- PART III BYZANTINE PERSPECTIVES: TEARS AND LAUGHTER, THEORY AND PRAXIS -- 8 ‘Messages of the Soul’: Tears, Smiles, Laughter and Emotions Expressed by them in Byzantine Literature -- 9 Towards a Byzantine Theory of the Comic? -- 10 Staging Laughter and Tears: Libanius, Chrysostom and the Riot of the Statues -- 11 Lamenting for the Fall of Jerusalem in the Seventh Century CE -- 12 Guiding Grief: Liturgical Poetry and Ritual Lamentation in Early Byzantium -- PART IV LAUGHTER, POWER AND SUBVERSION -- 13 Mime and the Dangers of Laughter in Late Antiquity -- 14 Laughter on Display: Mimic Performances and the Danger of Laughing in Byzantium -- 15 The Power of Amusement and the Amusement of Power: The Princely Frescoes of St Sophia, Kiev, and their Connections to the Byzantine World -- 16 Laughing at Eros and Aphrodite: Sexual Inversion and its Resolution in the Classicising Arts of Medieval Byzantium -- PART V GENDER, GENRE AND LANGUAGE: LOSS AND SURVIVAL -- 17 Comforting Tears and Suggestive Smiles: To Laugh and Cry in the Komnenian Novel -- 18 Do Brothers Weep? Male Grief, Mourning, Lament and Tears in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Byzantium -- 19 Laments by Nicetas Choniates and Others for the Fall of Constantinople in 1204 -- 20 ‘Words Filled With Tears’: Amorous Discourse as Lamentation in the Palaiologan Romances -- 21 The Tragic, the Comic and the Tragicomic in Cretan Renaissance Literature -- 22 Belisarius in the Shadow Theatre: The Private Calvary of a Legendary General -- 23 Afterword -- Appendix CHYROGLES, or The Girl With Two Husbands -- Bibliography -- Index Locorum -- Index Rerum