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The Journal of Theological Studies 2003 54(2):601-613; doi:10.1093/jts/54.2.601
© 2003 by Oxford University Press
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Review Article

Comedy, Tragedy, and the Truth1

Michael P. Foley

To indicate why this element of comedy is of crucial importance in Plato I read to you a few lines from the only Platonist I know of who had an appreciation of this element, Sir Thomas More. I quote: ‘For to prove that this life is no laughing time, but rather the time of weeping, we find that our saviour himself wept twice or thrice, but never find that he laughed as much as once...’ (Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, chap. 13). If we compare what More said about Jesus with what Plato tells us about Socrates, we find that ‘Socrates laughed twice or thrice, but never find that he wept as much as once.’ A slight bias in favor of laughing and against weeping seems to be essential to philosophy.

Leo Strauss

* 1A review of Serious Comedy. The Philosophical and Theological Significance of Tragic and Comic Writing in the Western Tradition. By PATRICK DOWNEY. Pp. 293. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2001. ISBN 0 7391 0116 1. $75.


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