Talking about Laughter: And Other Studies in Greek Comedy

358 Pages·2009·1.23 MB·English

by  Alan H. Sommerstein

TALKING ABOUT LAUGHTER
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Talking about
Laughter
and other studies in Greek comedy
ALAN H. SOMMERSTEIN
1
3
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To the memory
of
Surya ShaY
y 8.ii. 2008
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Preface
This book comprises a selection of my articles on Greek comedy
from 1980 to the present—though, for a reason which will be
explained presently, all but one of them actually originated in or
after1990.Themajorityhavebeenpublishedpreviously,butintwo
cases—Chapters 6 and 14—I have, with the consent of the confer-
ence organizers, included papers originally destined for publication
inconferencevolumeswhichhavenotintheend(oratanyratehave
not yet) seen the light of day. I hope soon to bring out a further
volumemainlyconsistingofarticlesontragedy.
Ihavechosentopresentherethosepaperswhichmightotherwise
be diYcult for many readers to access. I have therefore left out of
consideration those which Wrst appeared in books published in
English-speaking countries, or in periodicals widely available in the
libraries of universities with Classics departments, or in e-journals
accessible without subscription. (Chapters 11 and 12 are exceptions
only on the surface: the former appears here with the scholarly
apparatus which would have been inappropriate in the book in
which it was originally published, and the collection containing the
latter was actually an issue of a little-known, and now defunct,
periodical,theEuropeanStudiesJournal.)
Theseprinciplesofselectionlargelyaccountforthechronological
asymmetry mentioned above, owing to a change in my publication
habits which reXects—in a somewhat exaggerated form—a devel-
opment that has aVected the entire discipline. Until 1990 I hardly
ever gave papers at academic conferences, and my articles were
invariably submitted to journals. Then the conference on ‘Tragedy,
Comedy and the Polis’, held at Nottingham in July 1990 (when
I presented the paper which appears here as Chapter 13), led to
the planning of a series of others (two of which gave rise to the
paperswhichappearhereasChapters5and8),andsincethenmost
of the articles I have written (more than two-thirds, up to the time
of this writing) have been committed in advance to publication in
conference proceedings or other edited volumes. I do not wish to
viii Preface
express any opinion on whether this development has been for the
better or the worse.
With the exception of Chapter 11 (on which see above) and of
Chapter 4 (which appears here in its original English, having been
previously published in a French translation), these articles are
published here essentially as they originally appeared; each is fol-
lowedbyanaddendasectiondrawingattentiontosigniWcantsubse-
quent developments in the relevant scholarship, or to points where
my own thinking has changed since the article was Wrst published.
Referencetotheaddendaismadebyanasteriskinsertedinthetext.
This also applies, with some modiWcations, to Chapters 6 and 14,
which have been left essentially in the revised form in which they
weresubmittedforpublication;theirtexthasbeenupdatedasregards
styleandreferencingbutnotonmattersofsubstance.
Inthetenchaptersnotmentionedinthepreviousparagraph,the
original page numbers have been inserted in the text (and, where
necessary, in the notes), in square brackets and in boldface, at
the point where each new page of the original began. I have also
madethefollowingfurtherchanges;exceptforthoseintheWrstthree
categories,theseareindicatedinthetextbyanglebrackets.
(a) The style of references, abbreviations, etc., has been made
uniform throughout; I have not, however, attempted to regularize
my practice in such matters as the representation of Greek names.
Wheretheoriginalmakesreferencetoapaperofminenowincluded
inthisvolume,Ihavereplacedthisbyaninternalcross-reference.
(b)Wheretheoriginalpublicationhadendnotes,thesehavebeen
replacedbyfootnotes,butthepaginationoftheoriginalendnotesis
stillrecorded.
(c) At the end of each chapter an additional footnote has been
inserted recording its original publication (or conference delivery)
andacknowledgingthepermissiongivenforittobepublishedhere.
(d)InafewplacesIhavecorrectedamisprint,omission,orblatant
factualerror, which ought to have been dealt with atproof stage; in
one case I have corrected a reference to a statement in a conference
paperwhich,unknowntomeatthetime,hadbeenomittedfromthe
versionsubmittedforpublication.
Preface ix
(e) Where Ioriginally referred to an edition of a text, or a collec-
tionoffragmentsorinscriptions,whichhassincebeensupersededby
a more recentedition, I have inserted an up-to-date reference while
not suppressing the old one. Changes of this type have occasionally
necessitated the insertion of a few words of explanation elsewhere
(e.g.inn.19toChapter2).
(f)Ihaveoccasionallyinsertedanexplanation,unnecessaryinthe
original context, of a phrase like ‘the Colloquium from which this
volumederives’.
(g) In the discussion section of Chapter 10 I have made minor
modiWcationstothetextasoriginallypublished(derivedfromsound
recordings of the speakers’ impromptu words) in the interest of
grammaticality andintelligibility.
It remains to express my gratitude to Hilary O’Shea, of Oxford
UniversityPress,fortheenthusiasticsupportshegavetomyunsoli-
cited proposal for the publication of this volume; to the British
Academy, the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, and
above all the University of Nottingham, for making it Wnancially
possible for me to attend many of the conferences at which I pre-
sented papers that are here reproduced; and to those whose invita-
tions—to speak, or to write, or both—engendered so many of the
chaptersthatfollow:UmbertoBultrighini,SusanCarlson,Francesco
De Martino, Marie-Laurence Desclos, Andy Fear, Juan Antonio
Lo´pezFe´rez,JamesMcGlew,GiuseppeMastromarco,MarcoPresutti,
JimRoy,PascalThiercy,andBernhardZimmermann.
I have dedicated this book to the memoryof my former research
student, Surya ShaY, who pursued her studies undauntedly in the
face of physical disabilities (including a life-threatening illness) that
few if any others would have braved let alone surmounted, devoted
herlife toenabling andencouraging others todo likewise, anddied
tragicallyyounginthemidstofherendeavours.Maythatmemorybe
ablessingandaninspiration.
alanh.sommerstein
Nottingham