This rich and informative book is diverse yet interconnected and carefully thought through by the editors. It is an absorbing and stimulating read, revealing the complexity and polysemy of laughter and tears in antiquity and Byzantium and touching on a variety of fascinating subjects, such as the cultural continuities and discontinuities between antiquity and Byzantium, and between paganism and Christianity; the history of emotions and of their expression in literature; and the relationship between both representations of emotions, and gender and genres.

Margaret Alexiou and Douglas Cairns, eds. Greek Laughter and Tears: Antiquity and After. Edinburgh Leventis studies. Edinburgh University Press, 2017.

From Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR). Review by Katarzyna Jazdzewska, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University