Abusive Mouths in Classical Athens

by Nancy Worman

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521857871
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/10/2008
Pages:	398
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.18(d)

About the Author

Nancy Worman is Associate Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Barnard College, Columbia University, and author of The Cast of Character: Style in Greek Literature (2002).

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. The mouth and its uses in Homer, iambos, and tragedy; 2. Open mouths and abusive talk in Aristophanes; 3. Gluttonous speechifying in Euripides' Cyclops; 4. Crude talk and fancy fare in Plato; 5. Defamation and oral excess in Demosthenes and Aeschines; 6. The intemperate mouth in Aristotle and Theophrastus; Epilogue.

Editorial Reviews

"The book … helps to stake out new space beyond formalism and sociolinguistics for thinking about genre in the classical period. This, together with its baroque portraits of the characters who populated Athens' dirtiest domains of civic speech, makes Abusive Mouths in Classical Athens well worth the price of admission."
Comparative Studies in Society and History

From the Publisher