Laughter in Ancient Rome

Resumen del libro

What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to fear a world of wit, irony, and knowing smiles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena?

Laughter in Ancient Rome explores one of the most intriguing, but also trickiest, of historical subjects. Drawing on a wide range of Roman writing from essays on rhetoric to a surviving Roman joke book Mary Beard tracks down the giggles, smirks, and guffaws of the ancient Romans themselves. From ancient monkey business to the role of a chuckle in a culture of tyranny, she explores Roman humor from the hilarious, to the momentous, to the surprising. But she also reflects on even bigger historical questions. What kind of history of laughter can we possibly tell? Can we ever really get the Romans' jokes?

Biografía del autor

Mary Beard es catedrática de Clásicas en el Newnham College, Cambridge. Es editora en The Times Literary Supplement y autora del blog A Don s Life . Es miembro de la Academia Británica y de la Academia Americana de Artes y Ciencias. Entre sus libros publicados se incluye El triunfo romano (2008); Pompeya (2009), ganador del Premio Wolfson; La herencia viva de los clásicos (2013); SPQR. Una historia de la antigua Roma (2016); Mujeres y poder (2018); La civilización en la mirada (2019) y Doce césares (2021), todos ellos publicados en Crítica. Fue galardonada con el premio Princesa de Asturias de Ciencias Sociales en 2016.