 and the same goes for comedy, which offers the opportunity of “taking great pleasure” (606c) in letting us “give in violent laughter”, and even “be overcome by laughter” (III 388e-89a). To be sure, for Plato, this is a surrender to the irrational part of our soul, which may have some deleterious consequences. Aristotle does not seem to be worried by that, at least not in the case of adults. In one passage of the Politics, he warns that letting children go to the theater and watch comedies where people insult one another or make obscene jokes can be damaging, and he does not hesitate to prohibit them from going to the theater. But once “their education has rendered them immune to the harm such things can do” (VII 17.1336b22–23), there is no reason why adults should be prohibited, or even discouraged, from enjoying comic theater. In fact, a similar point can be made in the case of tragic poetry as well: if in the theater (or in an epic recital), we do take pleasure when, as Plato vividly depicts it, 