Author: Amy Riehlin
Publisher: Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1983
ISBN: 0-300-02902-0
Hardcover
Page Count: 289
As a general bookstore, we usually do not offer academic monographs. This is an exception. Much humor is often disguised or undisguised aggression, even in our genteel 21st century America. How much more was this true in psychologically violent Rome, where the social order was highly stratified and each class on the pyramid could rightfully fear those below them. Riehlin’s thesis is that much of the humor of the time expressed these fears and helped maintain the social distinctions. Rome left us enough material that she has an abundance to examine, a rare gift for a scholar of antiquity. She makes great use of it. Further, it is one of the rare instances where a modern academic framing, in this case feminist theory, fits perfectly with the mental world of a prior epoch.
Condition: Very good in all aspects.
Author: Amy Riehlin
Publisher: Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1983
ISBN: 0-300-02902-0
Hardcover
Page Count: 289
As a general bookstore, we usually do not offer academic monographs. This is an exception. Much humor is often disguised or undisguised aggression, even in our genteel 21st century America. How much more was this true in psychologically violent Rome, where the social order was highly stratified and each class on the pyramid could rightfully fear those below them. Riehlin’s thesis is that much of the humor of the time expressed these fears and helped maintain the social distinctions. Rome left us enough material that she has an abundance to examine, a rare gift for a scholar of antiquity. She makes great use of it. Further, it is one of the rare instances where a modern academic framing, in this case feminist theory, fits perfectly with the mental world of a prior epoch.
Condition: Very good in all aspects.
