Snickers and Sex
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25071/2369-7326.34874Abstract
Marcus Valerius Martialis (c.40-104 CE) was one of the wittiest and dirtiest of the Latin poets. Through eleven of his fourteen books of epigrams wit, poetic invention, and suggestive or, more often, explicit sexual situations come together in virtually every imaginable combination. There are excruciatingly elaborate comparisons of anatomy to various daily and not-so-daily objects (“Lydia’s beaver is as loose as a horse’s rear, as a swift-spinning bronze hoop, as the wagon-wheel through which the acrobat leaps…they say that I fucked Lydia in a pool: I can’t be sure; I think I fucked the pool” Book XI, 21), comic exaggerations (“As huge as your cock is, Papylus, your nose is just as long, so that you get a nasty snort of something whenever you get hard” Book VI, 36), and calumnies of every description (“Zoilus, you have fouled the water by washing your arse in it: the only way it could be worse is if you washed your head in it” Book II, 42).
All of this makes Martial an ideal place to start when trying to work out the links between humour and sexuality. What is it precisely about sexuality that makes it useful to Martial? What does it have in common with other forms of humour? Are there patterns to how Martial employs his bawdiness?
This paper explores these questions through a careful examination of three of Martial’s poems. In order of ascending bawdiness, they are: Book II, 52 (Novit loturos Dasius…), Book III, 26 (Praedia solus habes…), and Book XI, 21 (Lydia tam laxa est…). I argue for an understanding of humour as the satisfaction of a pattern or expectation in an unusual or surprising manner. Going through each poem in turn, I discuss the patterns or expectations Martial evokes in each and how they are satisfied. Finally, I argue that bawdiness is often a source of humour because we have a large and vivid set of expectations when it comes to sexual matters – expectations which can be satisfied in all manner of unexpected ways.
References
Antonopoulou, Eleni. “A Cognitive Approach to Literary Humour Devices.” The Translator 8.2 (2002): 195-220. Print. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2002.10799132
Attardo, Salvatore. “Humor Theory beyond Jokes: The Treatment of Humorous Texts at Large.” Automatic Interpretation and Generation of Verbal Humor. ed. Joris Hulstijn and Anton Nijholt. U of Twente, 1996. 87-101. Print.
Anton Nijholt. Linguistic Theories of Humor. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, 1994. Print.
Anton Nijholt. “Translation and Humour: An Approach Based on the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH).” The Translator 8.2 (2002): 173-94. Print. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2002.10799131
Bergson, Henri. Le Rire: Essai sur la signification du comique. Paris: Quadrige, 1900/1985. Print.
Cantor, J.R., J. Bryant, and D. Zillmann. “Enhancement of humor appreciation by transferred excitation.” Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 30.6 (1974): 812-821. Print. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/h0037543
Chiaro, Delia. The Language of Jokes: Analysing Verbal Play. London: Routledge, 1992. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203327562
Ermida, Isabel. Humor, Linguagem E Narrativa: Para Uma Análise Do Discurso Literário Cómico. Braga, Portugal: Universidade Do Minho, Centro De Estudos Humanísticos, 2003. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. Wit and its relation to the Unconscious. New York: Moffat, Yard, and Co., 1916. Print.
Gerber, Douglas E., ed. Greek Iambic Poetry: from the Seventh to Fifth Centuries BC.
Koestler, Arthur. The Act of Creation. New York: Macmillan, 1999. Print.
Marcus Valerius Martialis. Epigrams. Ed. and Trans. D.R. Shackleton-Bailey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard U P, 2002. Print.
Nash, Walter. The Language of Humor. London: Longman, 1985. Print.
Norrick, Neal R., and Delia Chiaro. Humor in Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009. Print. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.182
Norrick, Neal R. “Interdiscourse Humor: Contrast, Merging, Accommodation.” Humor - International Journal of Humor Research 20.4 (2007): 389-413. Print. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/HUMOR.2007.019
Norrick, Neal R. “Issues in Conversational Joking.” Journal of Pragmatics 35.9 (2003): 1333-359. Print. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00180-7
Provine, Robert R. Laughter: a Scientific Investigation. New York: Viking, 2000. Print.
Raskin, Victor. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985. Print. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6472-3
Richlin, Amy. The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print.
Rosen, Ralph. Making Mockery: The Poetics of Ancient Satire. Oxford: Oxford U P, 2007. Print. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195309966.001.0001
Sullivan, John P. “Martial's “Witty Conceits”: Some Technical Observations." Illinois Classical Studies 14 (1989): 185-199. Print.
Sullivan, John P. Martial: The Unexpected Classic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Print. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511582639
Suls, J.M. “A Two-Stage Model of the Appreciation of Jokes and Cartoons: An Information-Processing Analysis.” The Psychology of Humour: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Issues, ed. Jeffrey H. Goldstein, New York: Academic Press, 1972. Print.
