rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: How to tell a joke
    sub title: an ancient guide to the art of humor
  name:
    name part: Cicero, Marcus Tullius
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  name:
    name part: Fontaine, Michael
    role:
      role term: editor,
    role:
      role term: translator,
    role:
      role term: writer of supplementary textual content.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: nju
    date issued: 2021
    copyright date: 2021
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  language:
    language term: lat
  language:
    language term: lat
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: xxxiii, 292 pages ; 18 cm.
  abstract: Everyone knows that Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the great statesmen, lawyers and effective orators in the history of Rome. But did you also know he was regarded as one of the funniest people in Roman society as well? Five hundred years after his death, in the twilight of antiquity, the writer Macrobius ranks him alongside the comic playwright Plautus as the one of the two greatest wits ever. In this book, classicist Michael Fontaine, proposes to translate selections from Cicero's great rhetorical treatise, On the Ideal Orator (De Oratore). That larger work covered the whole of rhetoric and effective public speaking and debate. However, contained within it, is a long section focused on the effective use of humor in public speaking. In it, Cicero is concerned not just with various kinds of individual jokes, but with jokes that are advantageous in social situations. He advises readers on how to make the most effective use of wit to win friends, audiences, and achieve their overall ambitions. Cicero wants to teach his readers how to tell a joke without looking like a buffoon, and how to prevent or avoid jokes from backfiring. Hence, he does give scores of examples of jokes-some of which are timeless and translate easily, others that involve puns in Latin that challenged the translator's creativity. But overall, this work brings to the fore a little known, but important part of Cicero's classic work.
  table of contents: Introduction -- How to tell a joke / Cicero -- On the art of humor / Quintilian -- Epilogue.
  note: Marcus Tullius Cicero ; selected, translated, and introduced by Michael Fontaine.
  note: Facing page translations with Latin on the versos and English on the rectos ; introduction and epilogue in English.
  note: Includes bibliographical references.
  subject:
    topic: Wit and humor
    genre: Early works to 1800
  subject:
    topic: Joking
    genre: Early works to 1800
  classification: PA6308.D6 F66 2021
  classification: 875/.01
  related item:
    title info:
      title: Ancient wisdom for modern readers
  identifier: 9780691206165
  identifier: 0691206163
  identifier: 9780691211077
  identifier: 2020044600
  record info:
    record content source: DLC
    record creation date: 200930
    record change date: 20210728154733.0
    record identifier: in00004420883