Today was delightfully amusing, not the least because of an event which I would be writing about, but have been forbidden to because it is of an esoteric nature.

Instead, I shall talk again about the subject of comedy, which was touched upon in the last blog entry. Mr. Sexson read to us the passage near the end of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose(also a movie, starring Sean Connery and directed by Jean Jacques Annaud, which had the grace to call itself a 'palimpsest' of a novel), in which Eco puts down what he thinks to be as accurate a reconstruction of the introduction of Aristotle's lost book on comedy as is possible(dear Lord that was a long sentance). Very intriguing. It relates largely to the notion of that which is repressed coming to the surface, which may be the reason why the Festival of Fool's(or the Ass) or the Saturnia would have been tolerated during the Middle Ages.
We then proceeded to read aloud the oath-taking scene from Lysistrata from different translations, some more obscene then others--how curious that the more obscene ones where the ones that got the biggest laughs--. Translation, and the accuracy or lack-there-of of it, is something that I have to resist the urge to get hung up on. I do know that narrative flow and the connections made between images often come through perfectly, but there is always a small part of me that can worry as to what is more accurate, especially when butted against what sounds better(which can sometimes happen) Anyway, I thought it was interesting.