Reviewed by Ioannis M. Konstantakos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (iokonstan@phil.uoa.gr)
[Authors and titles are listed below.] The protean experience of laughter, in its multiple forms and expressions, has occupied some of the greatest thinkers and writers with almost as much intensity as the cardinal existential themes of love and death. This line of thought may be traced back to the ultimate roots of western culture, in the ancient Greek world. Modern researchers have duly investigated this aspect of Classical civilization. During the past decades several monographs and collective volumes have been published, which examine the uses of laughter in ancient literature, its social functions in the Hellenic communities, or its anthropological dimension in the cultural contexts of antiquity.1 What was missing from this rich crop of scholarship was a more holistic and text-centered kind of study, a book that would focus on specific passages of ancient writings which record, describe, or reflect on the phenomenon of laughter. This is the great contribution of the volume edited by Mary Yossi and Alexandra Melista. This book offers a veritable textual encyclopedia of laughter in Greek antiquity by gathering together and meticulously analyzing more than two hundred relevant citations from the most important works of ancient Greek poetry and prose. In this respect, the volume belongs to a long tradition of Hellenic scholarship, traceable back to the learned figures of the Imperial and the Byzantine age, such as Athenaeus and Photius. It is a book made up of the materials of other books, an epitome of an entire library of texts devoted to a central intellectual and cultural issue. The scope of the volume is impressive, both for its chronological breadth and for its variety of perspectives. The examples discussed cover the entire millennium of the ancient Greek literary canon, from Homeric epic and early Archaic lyric, via the great poets and prose-writers of the Classical and the Hellenistic era, to the most renowned masters of the mature Roman period; the authors of the second or early third century CE, such as Lucian, Longus, Achilles Tatius, and Pseudo-Hermogenes (On the Method of Forcefulness), mark the bottom temporal limit. Admittedly, the literature of the Imperial age could have been covered with greater ampleness. One misses a sustained exploration of the representations of laughter e.g. in the rhetorical ecphraseis of Philostratus' Images, in the anecdotes of his Lives of the Sophists, or in the vast sympotic entertainment of Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae. There is no reference to important late collections of humorous material which thematize the process and the consequences of laughing, such as the jokes of the Philogelos and the corpus of Aesopic fables. Nonetheless, the volume is large, substantial, and rewarding. As for the gamut of topics, the selection and treatment of the literary passages affords a comprehensive panorama of almost every form of mirth, from hilarious outbursts and loud guffaws to enigmatic smiles, from malicious mockery to playful joy. The case-studies range from the innocent grimaces of infants (Herodotus 5.92γ, Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals 779a11–26) to the biological theories about tickling (Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals 673a3–10, Problems 35.2, 35.6–8); they encompass both Andromache's tearful laugh (Iliad 6.484) and the seductive giggle of a hetaera in the symposion (Lucian, Dialogues of Courtesans 6.3); they extend from the riotous mirth of the audience in the theatre (Cratinus fr. 360 Kassel–Austin, Aristophanes, Frogs 1–20, Ecclesiazusae 1156, Wealth 796–799) to the cosmic laughter which enlivens the elements of the physical universe in moments of natural euphoria (Theognis 9–10, Apollonius of Rhodes 4.1170–1173, Palatine Anthology 5.144, 9.363, 10.2, 10.4). Mary Yossi has been for decades an inspiring professor of the Classics at the University of Athens and an efficient organizer of collaborative editorial projects. She has enriched Modern Greek philological bibliography with many translations, commentaries, and collections of essays jointly prepared by herself and her team of fellow scholars, most of whom are her distinguished former students. For the present volume Yossi has similarly gathered and directed a populous and varied staff. Each one of the co-authors was assigned a particular group of ancient writers or genres, corresponding to her or his favourite research interests. Everyone was given freedom to write in her or his own manner and style, as long as she or he remained faithful to the format of text-oriented discussion and commentary. This has inevitably caused some unevenness in the quality of the texts. Some of the authors are accomplished scholars of national or international reputation and bring to the task all their expertise in philological writing and mastery of research methods. Others are former graduate students or fairly recent doctoral laureates, with smaller experience in scholarly writing, and their chapters occasionally display a derivative character or suffer from the enthusiastic prolixity of a good postgraduate essay. Nonetheless, given the diversity of the contributors' backgrounds, the book is fairly unified in terms of approach, methodology, and layout and represents a feat of solid editorship. The contents are articulated in twelve thematic sections of different length; each section is dedicated to an important aspect or manifestation of laughter, as represented by ancient Greek writers. The first and amplest section, which fills up one third of the volume, concentrates on the aggressive laughter of satire and mockery. The quantitative predominance of this form in the book reflects its genuine supremacy in ancient sources. Derision was indeed a fundamental characteristic of the irritable and passionate Greek race, the competitive, envious, and merciless people who never easily submitted to measure. The discussion opens with the two emblematic depictions of ridicule at the beginning of the Iliad, the first laughs ever heard in the western literary canon. The Olympian gods burst into merriment when they watch the antics of Hephaestus, the divine jester (1.571–600), while the Achaean soldiers enjoy the humiliation of Hephaestus' human counterpart, the buffoonish Thersites (2.212–277). In tragic drama the derisive mockery of the enemies may push proud heroes, such as Ajax and Medea, to madness and atrocity. Attic comedy, historiography, and oratory present mockery as a basic ingredient of Athenian public life and a powerful weapon of the demagogues in the agora and the law-courts. The all-pervasive scoffing attitude of the Greek spirit (well understood by Boileau: "le Grec, né moqueur") taints the poetic contests of Theocritean shepherds (Idyll 7) and even conditions Eros' sardonic smile in front of his victims, as described by Hellenistic epigrammatists (Palatine Anthology 5.179). One of the most interesting parts of the book is the third, which addresses the evaluation of laughter from the point of view of ancient ethics and morality and provides an apposite counterbalance to the foregoing examination of derision and sneer. Especially the study of the texts of ancient moralists, from Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle to Plutarch, shows that aggressive and satirical laughter was standardly criticized as a source of damage for the soul and a danger for social order. Even when laughter was acknowledged as a useful part of life and a beneficial activity for the spiritual equilibrium and the social existence of a civilized person, it was deemed necessary to subject laughter to restrictions and tame its unruly aspects. The Greek moralists emphasize that the purpose of joking should be graceful and moderate amusement; they reject importunate jests, crude obscenities, and attacks of ridicule. Laughter should be a game, not a weapon. In this ancient tradition lie the ultimate roots of the systematic campaign for the incrimination and condemnation of ridicule, which permeates the history of western thought, from the medieval Church fathers and the Puritans to modern "agelastic" philosophical and political movements. The fourth and fifth sections form another well-matched pair, as they investigate the functions of laughter in two cardinal spheres of Greek cultural life, the symposion and ritual. In particular, the study of hilarity in religious texts and ritual accounts —from Iambe's entertainment of the grieving Demeter in the Homeric hymn (202–205) to the cheerful obscenity of Apollo's Hyperborean festival (Pindar, Pythian 10.31–44) and the merry divinities of the Callimachean hymns (3.1–32, 4.316–324)— helps to appreciate the essential difference of ancient pagan religious practice from the solemnity of the Christian liturgy. In the context of the ancient Greek faith, laughter was a manifestation of popular religiosity, inextricably interwoven with piety and religious experience. It was regarded as a contribution to the joy of the festival and hence as a genuine offering to the godhead. From among the following sections, the longest and most important one is the tenth, in which the concept of the geloion is examined in the context of ancient rhetorical and literary theory. Gorgias (82 B12 Diels–Kranz) and the Classical orators (Demosthenes 19.23–24, 19.45–46) give instructions as to how laughter may be exploited as an emotional means for undercutting the opponent or for gaining the audience's favour in the political arena. Plato strives to regulate the artistic expressions of the comic in his idealized city, always with a view to keeping jokes in their proper place and imposing a severe check on their acrimonious potential (Laws 816d–e, 935c–936b). Aristotle develops an evolutionary teleology of comic drama towards harmless playfulness, away from the combative poetics of blame; the true phusis of comedy is a form of play in which everyone laughs and no one feels pain (Nicomachean Ethics 1127b33–1128b4, Poetics 1448b34–1449a6, 1449a32–b9). Similarly Plutarch declares his preference for the graceful pleasantries of Menander by comparison to the harsh and malicious humour of Aristophanes (Moralia 854c–d). Critics and rhetoricians, from Demetrius to Pseudo-Longinus and Pseudo-Hermogenes, discuss the geloion as an aesthetic category and a stylistic effect. Another highly interesting section, the ninth, concentrates on the treatment of laughter in medical and biological writings, such as the Hippocratic works, Aristotle's zoological treatises, and the Pseudo-Aristotelian Problems. The remaining six briefer sections are a mixed bag of particular aspects or uses of laughter in specialized contexts and circumstances. These include laughter as a symptom of madness; the paradoxical feeling of laughter mingled with tears ("very tragical mirth"), as experienced e.g. by Socrates' disciples in their last conversation with their condemned master (Plato, Phaedo 59a); the seductive smile of erotic desire, which is displayed by Aphrodite and her favourites; the naive chuckle of children; and the concept of the ridiculous as a product of a logical incongruity or absurdity. The final section surveys the poetic use of laughter as a metaphor for pleasurable physical realities, such as spring, sunlight, flowering meadows, and the lap of the waves, or for intense emotions of the soul. The book has been in gestation for a long time. The final version of the text was handed over to the publisher in 2011, but publication was delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. As a result, it has not been possible to take into account secondary literature published after 2011, with rare exceptions. Bibliography prior to that date is admirably full; only a few monographs and articles about special aspects of the ridiculous in particular authors are omitted.2 Even readers who are not very fluent in Modern Greek may find the volume useful for its ample collection of ancient sources and bibliography. Overall, one will scarcely laugh while reading this book, but one will be keenly tickled to reflect on the roots and the history of laughter. The gelos of the ancients is still heard in the contemporary world and conditions our own experience of mirth.Titles and authors
Preface
Abbreviations
I. From derision to hubris
Homer (S. Chronopoulos)
Homeric Hymn to Hermes (S. Chronopoulos)
Semonides (M. Yossi)
Pindar (M. Yossi)
Aeschylus (G. Sotiropoulou)
Sophocles (G. Sotiropoulou)
Euripides (G. Sotiropoulou)
Aristophanes (G. Katsis)
Herodotus (V. Kostopoulos)
Thucydides (V. Kostopoulos)
Demosthenes (D. Spatharas)
Aeschines (D. Spatharas)
Plato (A. Tatsi and M. Yossi)
Xenophon (V. Kostopoulos)
Callimachus (P. Skarsouli)
Theocritus (P. Skarsouli)
Apollonius of Rhodes (P. Skarsouli)
Palatine Anthology (N. Papakonstantinou)
Achilles Tatius (N. Papakonstantinou)
Lucian (L. Tzallila)
Galen (A. Melista)
II. From mindlessness to madness
Homer (S. Chronopoulos)
Sophocles (G. Sotiropoulou)
Euripides (G. Sotiropoulou)
Plutarch (C. Rozaki)
III. Laughter from the viewpoint of ethics
Euripides (G. Sotiropoulou)
Aristophanes (G. Katsis)
Plato (A. Tatsi and M. Yossi)
Xenophon (V. Kostopoulos)
Aristotle (A. Melista)
Chrysippus (A. Melista)
Epicurus (A. Melista)
Dio Chrysostom (N. Anterriotis)
Plutarch (C. Rozaki)
Lucian (L. Tzallila)
IV. Laughter and the symposion
Theognis (M. Yossi)
Euripides (G. Sotiropoulou)
Aristophanes (G. Katsis)
Xenophon (V. Kostopoulos)
Callimachus (P. Skarsouli)
Palatine Anthology (N. Papakonstantinou)
Plutarch (C. Rozaki)
Lucian (L. Tzallila)
V. Laughter in the context of ritual
Homeric Hymn to Demeter (S. Chronopoulos)
Pindar (M. Yossi)
Euripides (G. Sotiropoulou)
Callimachus (P. Skarsouli)
Theocritus (P. Skarsouli)
Apollonius of Rhodes (P. Skarsouli)
VI. Laughter mingled with tears
Homer (S. Chronopoulos)
Plato (A. Tatsi)
Xenophon (V. Kostopoulos)
VII. Laughter, eros, himeros
Homer (S. Chronopoulos)
Sappho (M. Yossi)
Theocritus (P. Skarsouli)
Achilles Tatius (N. Papakonstantinou)
Palatine Anthology (N. Papakonstantinou)
Longus (N. Papakonstantinou)
VIII. Laughter of innocence
Herodotus (V. Kostopoulos)
Euripides (G. Sotiropoulou)
IX. Laughter from the viewpoint of physiology and medicine
Hippocratic writings (A. Melista)
Aristotle and Pseudo-Aristotle (A. Melista)
X. The ridiculous (geloion) from the viewpoint of poetics and rhetoric
Gorgias (D. Spatharas)
Demosthenes (D. Spatharas)
Cratinus (G. Katsis)
Aristophanes (G. Katsis)
Plato (A. Tatsi and M. Yossi)
Aristotle (A. Melista)
Palatine Anthology (N. Papakonstantinou)
Diodorus of Sicily (V. Kostopoulos)
Demetrius, On Style (A. Melista)
Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime (A. Melista)
Plutarch (C. Rozaki)
Lucian (L. Tzallila)
Pseudo-Hermogenes (A. Melista)
XI. The ridiculous (geloion) as an absurdity (atopon)
Hecataeus of Miletus (V. Kostopoulos)
Herodotus (V. Kostopoulos)
Euripides (G. Sotiropoulou)
Plato (A. Tatsi and M. Yossi)
Xenophon (V. Kostopoulos)
XII. From literal meaning to metaphor (?)
Hesiod (S. Chronopoulos)
Theognis (M. Yossi)
Aeschylus (G. Sotiropoulou)
Euripides (G. Sotiropoulou)
Aristotle and Pseudo-Aristotle (A. Melista)
Theophrastus (A. Melista)
Apollonius of Rhodes (P. Skarsouli)
Palatine Anthology (N. Papakonstantinou)
Achilles Tatius (N. Papakonstantinou)
Table of editions of ancient texts
Bibliography
Index of parallel passages
Notes:
1. See most notably D. Arnould, Le rire et les larmes dans la littérature grecque d'Homère à Platon, Paris 1990; S. Jäkel, A. Timonen (ed.), Laughter Down the Centuries, vol. 1–3, Turku 1994–1997; M. Trédé, P. Hoffmann (ed.), Le rire des anciens, Paris 1998; M.-L. Desclos (ed.), Le rire des Grecs. Anthropologie du rire en Grèce ancienne, Grenoble 2000; S. Halliwell, Greek Laughter. A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity, Cambridge 2008; M. Alexiou, D. Cairns (ed.), Greek Laughter and Tears. Antiquity and After, Edinburgh 2017.
2. For some bibliographical additions, see my recent critical essay "Το βιβλίο του γέλιου και της μνήμης" ["The Book of Laughter and Memory"], Philosophia 48 (2018) 312–326.
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