Test 4 General Flashcards
Rex facetus
- witty king
- medieval tradition
- wit and humour allows the king to demonstrate the superiority of his leadership
How does laughter demonstrate hierarchies?
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses:
- differentiates between mortal and immortal
In Life of Aesop:
- differentiates between master and slave
What was a parasite?
- opposite of a roman client
- they were actively and passively ridiculous
What evidence of the behaviour of a parasite is there?
Historia Augusta by Elagablus
- “they only drank through the individual courses and washed their hands as if they had eaten
What were clients and patrons?
- freemen who entrusted himself to another and received protection
- received daily food/money
protector of clients was called the patron
In what work is there the redemption of the scurra?
“The Crowns of Martyrdom”
- Prudentius tells the story of St. Lawrence’s death
- The saint made several jokes despite his torment
- Accused of using cavillo mimico and making ludicris, behaving like a scurra
- This is all because he called out the inappropriate use of church funds
How is rictus evidence of animal humour?
Latin word for laughing with the mouth open or for the gape of an animal’s mouth
What traits are monkeys associated with in the ancient world?
- imitation
- deception
- ugliness
- low birth
- ferocity
How is simia and similis connected for verbal humour?
Cicero: “how similar to us is that ugly beast, the ape?”
How is pithecium connected to animal humour?
Plautus compared a specific woman to a monkey and he also names several characters after his monkeys
- simo
- simulus
- simia
- pithecium
How is the monkey portrayed as the flatterer?
In Plutarch’s “How to tell a flatterer from a Friend”
- the ape is only capable as being an instrument of laughter
- an ape attempts humanly action in a ridiculous manner
Who were the authors of mime?
Decimus Laberius
- equestrian rank, able to write mimes but not perform them
Publilius Syrus
- former slave and author of mime
What is the story of Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass
- Lucius who was turned into an ass and then back into a human by goddess Isis
- He was turned into an ass because he was trying to turn himself into a bird so he could fly
- Showcases his experience as a human trapped in the form of a donkey as he navigates society
- Lucius as the author before the transformation and the actor after
Who was Philogelos?
- collection of 265 funny stories
- some of them are bad jokes, what the rome would have called cold jokes (frigidi)
- the egghead (scholastikos) was the most common character
Examples of jokes about places?
- Certain places were used as the butt of many jokes
- Abdera, Kyme, Sidon
- Broader cultural context
