The City of Laughter. Politics and Derision in Classical Athens.
Beautiful Letters| N° d'inventaire | 23245 |
| Format | 15 x 21.5 |
| Détails | 350 p., paperback with flaps. |
| Publication | Paris, 2021 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782251450919 |
"Laughter is the property of man," according to Rabelais. One could even swear that it is the property of our time. After all, humor and derision are everywhere, on the stage as well as on the benches of the National Assembly, and of course, on our screens. Laughter, a modern passion? Its omnipresence in classical Athens is enough to refute this postulate: parrhesia—the freedom to say anything—was carried like a standard there, far from the political correctness of our contemporaries. It was there, moreover, that, for the first time, thinkers like Plato and Aristotle took laughter seriously. This book takes them at their (good) word. Its goal? To unravel the carnal links between derision and politics in the democratic city. Jean-Noël Allard brings together Aristophanes and Bourdieu, Demosthenes and Habermas, Xenophon and Durkheim; and paints a portrait of a community deeply structured by laughter. Between verbal jousts and subtle jokes, tribunician invectives and demagogic mockery, comic caricatures and Dionysian insults, the reader will discover, without irony, one of the forgotten foundations of democracy: mockery as an art of living, derision as an institution.
"Laughter is the property of man," according to Rabelais. One could even swear that it is the property of our time. After all, humor and derision are everywhere, on the stage as well as on the benches of the National Assembly, and of course, on our screens. Laughter, a modern passion? Its omnipresence in classical Athens is enough to refute this postulate: parrhesia—the freedom to say anything—was carried like a standard there, far from the political correctness of our contemporaries. It was there, moreover, that, for the first time, thinkers like Plato and Aristotle took laughter seriously. This book takes them at their (good) word. Its goal? To unravel the carnal links between derision and politics in the democratic city. Jean-Noël Allard brings together Aristophanes and Bourdieu, Demosthenes and Habermas, Xenophon and Durkheim; and paints a portrait of a community deeply structured by laughter. Between verbal jousts and subtle jokes, tribunician invectives and demagogic mockery, comic caricatures and Dionysian insults, the reader will discover, without irony, one of the forgotten foundations of democracy: mockery as an art of living, derision as an institution.