N. Worman, Abusive Mouths in Classical Athens

Nancy Worman, Abusive Mouths in Classical Athens,  Cambridge/New York:  Cambridge University Press, 2008.  Pp. xi, 385.   ISBN 9780521857871.   $99.00.  
Recension par Bruce Krajewski (Texas Woman's University) dans Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.10.27.

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Présentation de l'éditeur:

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.

Table des matières:

Introduction 1
1 The mouth and its abuses in epic, lyric and tragedy 25
2 Open mouths and abusive talk in Aristophanes 62
3 Gluttonous speechifying in Euripides' Cyclops 121
4 Crude talk and fancy fare in Plato 153
5 Defamation and oral excesses in Aeschines and Demosthenes 213
6 The intemperate mouth in Aristotle and Theophrastus 275
Epilogue 319
Bibliography 325
Index locorum 346
General index 371