Facezie scartate, facezie ritrovate: tradizione scritta e tradizione orale, dal Philogelos al Margite

Jokes discarded and found again: written and oral tradition, from the Philogelos to the Margites One of the reasons for the great variability that characterizes the tradition of a non-canonical text such as the Philogelos lies in the significance of the individual jokes that make up the work for a changing audience. Jokes that become obsolete tend to be discarded by copyists. A special case, it should be noted, is that of sex jokes, which can be omitted for reasons of censorship. Sometimes it is possible to reconstruct an oral circulation for some jokes, on the basis of folkloric parallels. In certain cases, these findings can also help in the interpretation of humorous texts, starting with the Margites attributed to Homer, sacrificed by the manuscript tradition (possibly also because of its obscenity), but with many comparisons in folk tales. Especially the latter can offer a subsidy for the interpretation of the enigmatic fr. 7 Gostoli, in which the protagonist wrestles with a chamber pot, with disastrous results.