Agelastas rabelais biography

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Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity [1 ed.] 0521889006, 9780521889001

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Preface
Note to the reader
Abbreviations
Chapter 1 Introduction: Greek laughter in theory and practice
natur and culture, bodies and minds
The dialectic of play and seriousness
To laugh or not to laugh?
Chapter 2 Inside and outside morality: the laughter of Homeric gods and men
Between pathos and bloodlust: the range of homeric laughter
Divine conflict and pleasure in the iliad
Thersites and the volatility of laughter
Sex and hilarity on olympus
From debauchery to madness: the story of the suitors
Epilogue: achilles’ only smile
Chapter 3 Sympotic elation and resistance to death
Dreaming of immortality
Face-to-face tensions: intimacy and antagonism
Satyric and tragic versions of sympotic laughter
Socratic complications: xenophon’s symposium
Chapter 4 Ritual laughter and the renewal of li

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Lucian’s Laughing Gods: Religion, Philosophy, and Popular Culture in the Roman East 9780472133345, 9780472220977, 0472133349
Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Unquenchable Laughter
Chapter 1. Lucian in Performance: No More Hedgehogs
Chapter 2. Laughter-Loving Gods: Anthropomorphism, Imitation, and Morality
Chapter 3. Rituals: Sacrificing to Hungry Gods
Chapter 4. Passions: Worship and Desire
Chapter 5. Politics: Cities of Gods and Men
Chapter 6. Mediations: Oracles, Seers, and Sorcerers
Conclusion: If There Are Gods...
Note on Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index Locorum
Index Rerum
Citation preview
Lucian’s Laughing Gods

Lucian’s Laughing Gods Religion, Philosophy, and Popular Culture in the Roman East ❦

Inger N.I. Kuin

University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor

Copyright © 2023 by Inger N.I. Kuin All rights reserved For questions or permissions, please contact [email protected] Published in the United States of America by the University of
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agelast
Learned borrowing from Ancient Greekἀγέλαστος(agélastos, “not laughing”), from γελάω(geláō, “to laugh”). Attributed to a French coinage by François Rabelais (ca.1483–1494—1553).
IPA^(key): /ˈæd͡ʒəˌlæst/
IPA^(key): /ˈeɪd͡ʒəˌlæst/
Hyphenation: age‧last
agelast (pluralagelasts)
(rare) One who never laughs (especially at jokes); a mirthless person.
Antonyms:gelast(rare), laugher, cachinnator, hypergelast
2005, Arkady Kovelman, Between Alexandria and Jerusalem: The Dynamic of Jewish and Hellenistic Culture, Koninklijke Brill, page 50:
As a real agelast in a comedy, he is beaten. The beating of an agelast is the most important point of the comedy.
2008, Charles Partee, The Theology of John Calvin, Westminster John Knox Press, page 10:
Declaring with Doumergue that "Rabelais and Calvin (and Olivétan) were the creators of French literary prose,"²⁵ Bakhtin adds "Even the agelast Calvin wrote a pamphlet about relics wit