Changes

==="Ancient humor"===

==="Ancient humor"===

One thing I think many of Mr. Schlafay's detractors are overlooking is the possibility that the works we refer to as "comedies" today might not have been intended as comedies in their own time. --[[User:GarthA|GarthA]] 21:42, 9 February 2009 (EST)

One thing I think many of Mr. Schlafay's detractors are overlooking is the possibility that the works we refer to as "comedies" today might not have been intended as comedies in their own time. The word "[[comedy]]" is English (as are all the other words used to describe Aristophanes' work: [[joke]], [[humor]], etc.), so we are in effect relying on modern translators of Ancient Greek to tell us what the Ancient Greeks thought about their own literary works.

 

The other day I was looking out my [[window]] and saw two [[squirrel]]s chasing each other up and down a [[tree]] trunk. Suddenly the lead squirrel stopped and turned around so suddenly that the other squirrel bumped into its head and fell off the tree! (It was only six feet or so off the ground, so the squirrel was unharmed.) I laughed at this funny occurrence — but of course the two squirrels weren't ''trying'' to put on a funny show for me; they were just doing what comes naturally to animals. Perhaps when we look into our history books and see the funny things that were done by Aristophanes, we should keep these two squirrels in mind. I think Mr. Schlafay was speaking particularly about the ''conscious'' exercise of humor — the ''intention'' to do funny things, not simply the ''fact'' of having done funny things. Nobody can seriously argue that nothing funny ever happened in antiquity... but ''why'' did it happen? that's the question. --[[User:GarthA|GarthA]] 21:48, 9 February 2009 (EST)

==Who was right - Catholics or Protestants?==

==Who was right - Catholics or Protestants?==