ENGLISH

Abusive Mouths in Classical Athens

By Nancy Worman

Book information

Year
2008
ISBN
0521857872, 9780521857871, 9780511394898
Open Library ID
OL10437513M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
3 MB (2783582 bytes)
Pages
398\398
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

This study of the language of insult charts abuse in classical Athenian literature that centres on the mouth and its appetites, especially talking, eating, drinking, and sexual activities. Attic comedy, Platonic dialogue, and fourth-century oratory often deploy insulting depictions of the mouth and its excesses in order to deride professional speakers as sophists, demagogues, and women. Although the patterns of imagery explored are very prominent in ancient invective and later western literary traditions, this is the first book to discuss this phenomenon in classical literature. It responds to a growing interest in both abusive speech genres and the representation of the body, illuminating an iambic discourse that isolates the intemperate mouth as a visible emblem of behaviours ridiculed in the democratic arenas of classical Athens.

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