A Transmedial Perspective on Humor: Jokes in Greek Comedy and on Vases

This article examines jokes in Greek Old Comedy, and on black- and red-figure vaseware. It argues that jokes operate along similar conceptual and even philosophical lines across these two different media. The article makes no case for a relationship of influence between these media, but rather suggests that jokes’ tendency toward metarepresentationality arises independently in different artistic media and forms. The article also suggests that the prevalence of jokes problematizing the relationship between sign and meaning in the Archaic and Classical periods may hint at an underlying cultural anxiety about the relationship between art and reality.