The Truest Tragedy: Conciliation and Antagonism in Plato’s Laws

Abstract

This paper examines the quarrel with the tragic poets in Laws, VII 817b-d, by emphasizing, on the one hand, fundamental differences with the more famous quarrel of the Republic, and by arguing, on the other hand, for a strong (and not merely rhetorical) reading of the central claim of the passage, namely, that the very political constitution proposed in the dialogue is itself the “truest tragedy.” Assuming this perspective, I show that the constitution of Magnesia is the best possible tragedy insofar as it makes possible the greatest realization of the community’s life, recognizing, appealing to, and integrating human passions and weaknesses within itself. We are confronted with a notion of tragedy that, while recognizing as its starting point the antagonism proper to the tragic genre, aspires to common happiness as the most beautiful culmination of the human drama.