Output details

Greek Laughter : A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity

Earlier versions of four (of ten) chapters had been published, one in French, between 2000 and 2007. All this material was very heavily revised, rethought, and considerably expanded: this is demonstrated by the fact that the earlier pieces amounted to some 36,000 words but in their reworked form add up to 100,000 words of the book, where the ideas in question are fully integrated into a new, complex and cumulative context of argument.

The first ever attempt to explore Greek attitudes to and uses of laughter across an ambitiously extensive cultural span, taking into account large amounts of material from literature, myth, philosophy, religion, and social mores. New, detailed readings are offered of an exceptionally large number of texts, genres and contexts from archaic Greece to early Christianity, and a series of original ideas are developed about how to place and make sense of laughter (including its psychological and behavioural correlates) within the complex web of Greek mentalities and values.