Plato on Comedy and Tragedy: The Role of Drama in the Pursuit of Happiness

by Franco V. Trivigno

Overview

For Plato, tragedy and comedy are meaningful generic forms with proto-philosophical content concerning the moral character of their protagonists. He operates with a distinction between actual drama, the comedy and tragedy of the fourth and fifth centuries BCE, and ideal drama, the norm for what comedy and tragedy ought to be like. In this book Franco Trivigno reconstructs, on Plato's behalf, an original philosophical account of tragedy and comedy and illustrates the interpretive value of reading Plato's dialogues from this perspective. He offers detailed analyses of individual dialogues as instances of ideal comedy and tragedy, with attention to their structure and philosophical content; he also reconstructs Plato's ideals of comedy and tragedy by formulating definitions of each genre, specifying their norms, and showing how the two genres are related to each other. His book will be valuable for a range of readers interested in Plato and in Greek drama.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009360135
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/13/2025
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Franco V. Trivigno is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo. He is the author of Plato's Ion: Poetry, Expertise and Inspiration (Cambridge, 2020), and the co-editor of The Philosophy and Psychology of Character and Happiness (2014), and Laughter, Humor and Comedy in Ancient Philosophy (2019).

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Plato's definition of comedy; 2. Comedic characterization in Plato's Euthydemus; 3. Parody in Plato's Cratylus; 4. Plato's definition of tragedy; 5. Tragedy and the best life in Plato's Gorgias; 6. Tragedy and death in Plato's Phaedo; 7. The unity of comedy and tragedy in the symposium.