This volume brings together an international team of scholars to explore the shifting shapes and functions of laughter and tears in the history, religion, art and literature of Greek communities from Antiquity to Byzantium and beyond. What makes us laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time? How do these two primal, seemingly discrete and non-verbal modes of expression intersect in the everyday life and ritual of Greek communities, and what range of emotions do they entail? How may they be voiced, shaped and coloured in literature and liturgy, art and music? What happens when laughter and tears ... More

This volume brings together an international team of scholars to explore the shifting shapes and functions of laughter and tears in the history, religion, art and literature of Greek communities from Antiquity to Byzantium and beyond. What makes us laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time? How do these two primal, seemingly discrete and non-verbal modes of expression intersect in the everyday life and ritual of Greek communities, and what range of emotions do they entail? How may they be voiced, shaped and coloured in literature and liturgy, art and music? What happens when laughter and tears slip into each other and back again? What can we learn about human emotions and communicative modes across the ages, genres and cultures of Hellenic civilisation? The book breaks new ground in tracing the emotional, socio-cultural, religious and literary aspects of laughter and tears in a range of different artistic, cultural and historical contexts, across the longue durée of Greek civilisation. It brings students of ancient and Byzantine emotion into dialogue and shows how much is to be gained by collaborating across the disciplinary and chronological boundaries that demarcate the historical study of the Greek world.