Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic - Couverture rigide

Corbeill, Anthony

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0691027390 ISBN 13 : 9780691027395

Editeur : Princeton University Press, 1996

Synopsis

Previous scholarship has offered two explanations for why abusive language proliferated in Roman oratory. The first asserts that public rhetoric, filled with extravagant lies, was unconstrained by strictures of propriety. The second contends that invective represents an artifice borrowed from Greeks. The author assesses evidence outside political discourse - from prayer ritual to philosophical speculation to physiognomic texts - in order to locate independently the biases in Roman society that enabled an orator's jokes to persuade. Within each instance of abusive humour - a name pun, for example, or the mockery of a physical deformity - resided values and preconceptions that were essential to the way a Roman citizen of the Late Republic defined himself in relation to his community.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Although numerous scholars have studied Late Republican humor, this is the first book to examine its social and political context. Anthony Corbeill maintains that political abuse exercised real powers of persuasion over Roman audiences and he demonstrates how public humor both creates and enforces a society's norms. Previous scholarship has offered two explanations for why abusive language proliferated in Roman oratory. The first asserts that public rhetoric, filled with extravagant lies, was unconstrained by strictures of propriety. The second contends that invective represents an artifice borrowed from the Greeks. After a fresh reading of all extant literary works from the period, Corbeill concludes that the topics exploited in political invective arise from biases already present in Roman society. The author assesses evidence outside political discourse--from prayer ritual to philosophical speculation to physiognomic texts--in order to locate independently the biases in Roman society that enabled an orator's jokes to persuade. Within each instance of abusive humor--a name pun, for example, or the mockery of a physical deformity--resided values and preconceptions that were essential to the way a Roman citizen of the Late Republic defined himself in relation to his community. Originally published in 1996. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Biographie de l'auteur

Anthony Corbeill is professor of classics at the University of Kansas and the author of "Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic" and "Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome" (both Princeton).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Princeton University Press
• Date d'édition: 1996
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0691027390
• ISBN 13: 9780691027395
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 266
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible