Review of H. Lloyd-Jones, \u3cem\u3eGreek Comedy, Hellenistic Literature, Greek Religion and Miscellanea\u3c/em\u3e

This book collects some of Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones\u27 [Ll.-J.] most important work on the subjects listed in its title, and forms, along with its companion volume on Greek epic, lyric and tragedy [reviewed in this issue by M. Halleran], an elegant and impressive tribute to the career of one of this century\u27s most influential (if at times controversial) classical scholars. The book represents the full range of Lloyd-Jones\u27 interests and expertise, including brief, incisive textual notes, full-blown editions of fragmentary texts, book reviews, and expansive, often polemical, treatises on various aspects of Greek culture and Classical scholarship

Comic \u3cem\u3eParrhêsia\u3c/em\u3e and the Paradoxes of Repression

Comic satirists such as Aristophanes thrive on the tension that arises from their need to ridicule prominent figures of contemporary society and the possibility that this ridicule will cause genuine offense. The history of satire is full of complaints by authors that they work in a dangerous profession, and that their detractors fail to appreciate their high-minded, often explicitly didactic intentions. In such moments, satirists attempt to leave the impression that those who try to repress their freedom to mock and abuse are unwelcome obstacles to their enterprise. It is precisely such allegations of risk and danger, however, that make for effective satire and allow satirists to present themselves as comically “heroic” in the first place. And if satire requires a fraught, antagonistic relationship between author and target, we cannot trust the satirist’s account of the relationship or accept the claim that the alleged oppression is unwelcome. This study begins with such conundra in Aristophanes, and examines comparative evidence from other periods and literary forms, including Homer’s Thersites, Horace, Socrates and Lenny Bruce

Review of Neil O\u27Sullivan, \u3cem\u3eAlcidamas, Aristophanes and the Beginnings of Greek Stylistic Theory\u3c/em\u3e

Most of us tend to think of the fourth century BC as the time when a reasonably standardized vocabulary for rhetoric developed, and along with it an increasingly selfconscious and systematized notion of the TE/XNH of persuasion. There is certainly some truth in this; but it is also very likely that, if we simply had more evidence from the fifth century, particularly about the sophists, we would have to reformulate significantly our understanding not only of the development of rhetoric but of the entire contemporary intellectual landscape as well. O\u27Sullivan\u27s monograph, a revision of a 1986 Cambridge PhD dissertation, cannot of course conjure up a new body of fifth-century evidence, but it does make us rethink many of the common presumptions about the early development of Greek rhetorical theory

\u27I Am Whatever You Say I Am\u27: Satiric Program in Juvenal and Eminem

Literary satire has always lent itself well to comparative study, if only because so many of its characteristic traits seem particularly stable across time and place. In another era, one might have been tempted to speak of indignation, mockery and ironic self-righteousness - to name only a few of satire\u27s continually recurring elements - as human universals, and so to believe that as long as people find artistic outlets to represent their experience, there will always be something instantly recognizable as satire

Galen, Plato, and the Physiology of Eros

Eros and the erotic\u27 are terms generally applied to psychological and emotional states, but as most people know from personal experience, it can be small step from teh psychological to the physical. From ancient poetry to the pop songs of our own day, the effects of love on teh body have been well catalogues and long lamented, and in extreme cases the doctors have to be brought in. Greek medical writers have not left us copious clinical discussions of the physical consequences of eros, but they have certainly aware that an individual\u27s emotional state could be prodoundly affect the body, and erotic desire was commonly implicated in a variety of physical pathologies. Just where - or how - these emotional state could profoundly affect the body was a constant puzzle for Green and Roman doctors, especially those whose materialist orientation encouraged them to map emotional states on to specific organs

Performance and Textuality in Aristophanes\u27 Clouds

During the 5th century BCE Athenians honored the god Dionysus at two public events with ritual activity, political business and public spectacle. The smaller of the two, the Leneaen festival, took place in the winter, and the city Dionysia a few months later in the spring.2 These festivals featured a number of musical and poetic events, but they are best known to us as the occasions for the performance of Greek tragedy and comedy.

Review of Thomas K. Hubbard, \u3cem\u3eThe Mask of Comedy. Aristophanes and the Intertextual Parabasis\u3c/em\u3e

Few formal elements of Old Comedy have troubled scholars as much as the parabasis. In its typical form, this choral digression appears to interrupt the dramatic fiction of the play with commentary on contemporary social or political issues and often brazen trumpeting of the poet\u27s virtues. Its apparent discontinuity with the rest of the play encouraged scholars of an earlier age to consider it the original kernel of Comedy onto which dramatic episodes were eventually grafted

Hipponax Fr. 48 Dg. and the Eleusinian Kykeon

Hipponax fr. 48 Dg. has been understood in the past as a statement of the poet\u27s poverty and hunger.1 More recently, however, scholars have pointed out the humor and ambiguity of the fragment, noting in particular the mock-heroic diction of the first two lines and the bathos that results when this sort of diction is applied to such an apparently trivial subject as one\u27s own hunger.