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This volume presents a wide range of contributions that analyse the cultural, sociological and communicative significance of tears and crying in Graeco-Roman antiquity. The papers cover the time from the eighth century BCE until late antiquity and take into account a broad variety of literary genres such as epic, tragedy, historiography, elegy, philosophical texts, epigram and the novel. The collection also contains two papers from modern socio-psychology.
List of contents
Thorsten Fögen: Introduction; Sabine Föllinger: Tears and Crying in Archaic Greek Poetry (especially Homer); Douglas L. Cairns: Weeping and Veiling. Grief, Display and Concealment in Ancient Greek Culture; Ann C. Suter: Tragic Tears and Gender; Roland Baumgarten: Dangerous Tears? Platonic Provocations and Aristotelic Answers; Donald Lateiner: Tears and Crying in Hellenic Historiography: Dacryology from Herodo-tus to Polybius; Darja Sterbenc Erker: Women's Tears in Ancient Roman Ritual; Christina A. Clark: Tears in Lucretius; Thorsten Fögen: Tears in Propertius, Ovid and Greek Epistolographers; Loretana de Libero: "Precibus ac lacrimis". Tears in Roman Historiographers; Margaret Graver: The Weeping Wise. Stoic and Epicurean Consolations in Seneca's 99th Epistle; Helmut Krasser: Statius and the Weeping Emperor (Silv. 2.5). Tears as a Means of Communication in the Amphitheatre; Donald Lateiner: Tears in Apuleius' "Metamorphoses"; Anthony Corbeill: Weeping Statues, Weeping Gods and Prodigies from Republican to Early-Christian Rome; David Konstan: Meleager's Sweet Tears. Observations on Weeping and Pleasure; Stefan Schorn: Tears of the Bereaved. Plutarch's "Consolatio ad uxorem" in its Context; Ilaria Ramelli: Tears of Pathos, Repentance and Bliss. Crying and Salvation in Origen and Gregory of Nyssa; Charles Pazdernik: Fortune's Laughter and a Bureaucrat's Tears. Sorrow, Supplication and Sovereignty in Justinianic Constantinople; Arvid Kappas: Mysterious Tears. The Phenomenon of Crying from the Perspective of Social Neuroscience; Ad J. J. Vingerhoets, Lauren Bylsma & Jonathan Rottenberg: Crying. A Biopsychosocial Phenomenon
About the author
Thorsten Fögen, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.
Report
"Der vorliegende Band bietet eine wertvolle systematische Übersicht über ein Thema, das zuvor im Gegensatz zu Humor und Gelächter nur punktuell erforscht wurde."
Judith Hindermann in: Museum Helveticum Universität Basel Vol. 67 Fasc. 4 (2010)
"En definitiva, estamos ante una obra completa y exhaustiva que nos aporta diversas visiones e interpretaciones de autores y épocas sobre un tema en el Mundo Antiguo que, según queda demostrado, requería una mayor profundización: las lágrimas."
Jorge Tárrega in: BMCR 2010.10.14
"Insgesamt besticht der vorliegende Band [...] durch seine Ausgewogenheit und die Aktualität der in ihm vertretenen Forschungsansätze."
Judith Hagen in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 22.03.2010
