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Start giftingLaughter in Ancient Rome
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Learn moreWhat made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to fear—a world of wit, irony, and knowing smiles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena?
Laughter in Ancient Rome explores one of the most intriguing, but also trickiest, of historical subjects. Drawing on a wide range of Roman writing—from essays on rhetoric to a surviving Roman joke book—Mary Beard tracks down the giggles, smirks, and guffaws of the ancient Romans themselves. From ancient "monkey business" to the role of a chuckle in a culture of tyranny, she explores Roman humor from the hilarious, to the momentous, to the surprising. But she also reflects on even bigger historical questions. What kind of history of laughter can we possibly tell? Can we ever really "get" the Romans' jokes?
Mary Beard is a professor of classics at Cambridge University and the author of the bestselling SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, Women & Power: A Manifesto, and the National Book Critics Circle Award-nominated Confronting the Classics. A popular blogger and television personality, Beard is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.
As a retired board-certified music therapist, licensed counselor, and veteran of the Michigan Opera and several community theaters, Jennifer Dixon has explored the power of words and music to motivate, inspire, provoke, soothe, and heal-all of which she brings to her work as an audiobook narrator. Even though she was born within the sound of Bow Bells in London England (now residing in the beautiful state of Michigan), Jennifer has a "proper old-fashioned BBC sound, with American overtones," but can conjure up her cockney side if need be!