Laughter at the Foot of the Cross / Michael A. Screech.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Screech, Michael A., Author.

Contributor:

Grafton, Anthony.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Laughter--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Laughter.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (353 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Christian laughter is a maze: you could easily get snarled up within it." So says Michael A. Screech in his note to readers preceding this collection of fifty-three elegant and pithy essays. As Screech reveals, the question of whether laughter is acceptable to the god of the Old and New Testaments is a dangerous one. But we are fortunate in our guide: drawing on his immense knowledge of the classics and of humanists like Erasmus and Rabelais-who used Plato and Aristotle to interpret the Gospels-and incorporating the thoughts of Aesop, Calvin, Lucian of Samosata, Luther, Socrates, and others, Screech shows that Renaissance thinkers revived ancient ideas about what inspires laughter and whether it could ever truly be innocent. As Screech argues, in the minds of Renaissance scholars, laughter was to be taken very seriously. Indeed, in an era obsessed with heresy and reform, this most human of abilities was no laughing matter.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Foreword

To the Reader

A Note on Translations and Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Laughter is the Property of Man

2. Laughter in an Evil World

3. Christian Humanists

4. Jewish and Gentile 'Schoolmasters'

5. The Mocking of the Crucified King

6. The Old Testament Gospel

7. Words and their Meanings

8. The Mocking of Christ in the Old Testament

9. Unholy Railing

10. Good Holy Railing

11. Diasyrm

12. A God who Laughs to Scorn

13. Erasmus on Diasyrm

14. The Laughter of Jesus and the Laughter of the Father in the New Testament

15. More Irony from Jesus

16. Pitiless Laughter at Ugliness

17. Ignorance or Madness? The Importance of a Gamma More Socratic Laughter in the Philebus

18. Madman Laughs at Madman

19. Laughing at Christ and Laughing at Carabba

20. Laughing Back

21. Christ as Divine Madman

22. Madness Providentially Feigned by David: a Silenus

23. Theophylact and a Lunatic's Chains

24. Laughing with the Great Cardinal of Saint-Cher

25. Jesus in Ecstatic Madness

26. Lessons in Exegesis

27. Plato and Christian Madness

28. Drunk with God and Drunk with Wine

29. Christ's Mad Disciples: Erotic Madness

30. The Philosophy of Christ

31. The Foolishness of God

32. Socrates

33. Christian Laughter all but Nipped in the Bud: Eutrapely Condemned

34. The Gospel according to Lucian: Christianity is once again Stupid and Mad

35. Lucian in the Pulpit

36. A Taste of Lucianic Laughter in the Colloquies

37. Laughter in the Annotations

38. He who Calleth his Brother a Fool

39. Fools in Cap-and-Bells?

40. Caps and Bells Sneak In

41. Obscure Men

42. Dutch Wit, Gallic Licence and the Liturgical Year

43. Christian Wit and Christian Comedy: 'The Great Jester of France'

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

Other Format:

Print version: Screech, M. A. (Michael Andrew) Laughter at the foot of the cross.

ISBN:

9780226245256

OCLC:

906576909