Plato on Tragic and Comic Pleasures

Abstract

A recurring theme in Plato’s critique of poetry is the pleasures it affords. Poetry’s pleasures allow poets, little by little, to instil values in the soul of their audience — that is, the values which their protagonists represent. In Plato’s view, these are very often morally degraded values. At the same time, Plato holds that we need poetry in order to impersonate the right values and to develop the best moral attitudes and habits. Thus, he recommends an ‘austere’ poetry for pedagogical purposes, and outlines a programme of censorship for poetry that meets these quite demanding ‘austerity standards’.