Talking about Laughter: And Other Studies in Greek Comedy

by Alan H. Sommerstein

Overview

This book brings together fourteen studies by Alan Sommerstein on Aristophanes and his fellow comic dramatists, some of which have not previously appeared in print. The studies cover almost all the major topics of Sommerstein's work - the nature and functions of comedy in Aristophanes' time, its connections with the society and politics of its day, the question of Aristophanes' own political stances, the light comedy can throw on classical Athenians' perception of basic social divisions (age, gender, citizen/alien, free/slave), comedy's exploitation of the expressive resources of the Greek language, the composition and production history of individual plays, and the history of the genre as a whole.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199554195
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/05/2009
Pages:	358
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Alan H. Sommerstein is Professor of Greek at the University of Nottingham.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. The language of Athenian women2. The naming of women in Greek and Roman comedy3. The anatomy of euphemism in Aristophanic comedy4. Talking about laughter in Aristophanes5. Old Comedians on Old Comedy6. Slave and citizen in Aristophanic comedy7. Monsters, ogres and demons in Old Comedy8. The silence of Strepsiades and the agon of the first Clouds9. Response to Niall Slater10. An alternative democracy and an alternative to democracy in Aristophanic comedy11. Lysistrata the warrior12. Nudity, obscenity and power: modes of female assertiveness in Aristophanes13. Kleophon and the restaging of Frogs14. Platonios diff.com. 29-31 and 46-52 Koster: Aristophanes' Aiolosikon, Kratinos' Odyssês and Middle Comedy

Editorial Reviews

"Talking About Laughter is a must-read for specialists, but it also has much to offer non-specialists and both graduate and advanced undergraduate students: these are original works of scholarship that wear their great learning lightly, that are lucidly and engagingly written, and that illuminate important topics with cogency, imagination, and flair." —Classical World

From the Publisher