Ridiculed death and the dead: Black humor on the epitaphs and epigrams of the ancient Greece

Abstract

Theories about black humor usually regard that it as a contemporary phenomenon and a culmination of the literary modernism and beginning of post-modernism. My intent in this paper is to refute the thesis that the black humor is a modern invention. I am going to prove its existence still in Greek antiquity, quoting and analyzing humorous epitaphs and black humor epigrams. Putting in relation black humor with the joy and humor in religious (fertility and funeral) rituals, I am also going to set a question about the attitude to death and life inherent for this kind of humor, arguing that its origin should be searched in the folk tradition.