Plato on Comedy & Laughter (I)

A comic poet, or maker of iambic or satirical lyric verse, shall not be permitted to ridicule any of the citizens, either by word or likeness, either in anger or without anger. And if any one is disobedient, the judges shall either at once expel him from the country, or he shall pay a fine of three minae...--Plato (Laws, Book XI, 936b)

In [Laws] Book VII, the Athenian Stranger tells Cleinias that in comedies laughter is produced by showing "uncomely persons and thoughts" (816d). Virtuous free people must know what is laughable, but only to avoid it themselves. They should never participate in comic performances, because that would mean imitating spiteful actions and, consequently, violating the virtue they should aim at. Comic acting should be left to "slaves and hired strangers," i.e., to the lower class, who are not supposed to have any commitment to notions of honour or virtue. For Plato, then, humour production is to become a sign of social differentiation: not all members of society should engage in humour in the same manner.--The Source Book ed. by Jorge Figueroa-Dorrego & Cristina Larkin-Galiñanes 21

[T]hrough Socrates' words, Plato associates the humour of comedy with vice and offence, and makes it unworthy of the elevated concerns of the ideal upper class. [...] Socrates had told Adeimantus that "we don't want our guardians to be too fond of laughter either. Indulgence in violent laughter commonly invites a violent reactions" (388e). This obviously related humour to violence. [...] The elite should not indulge in excessive laughter, not only in real life but also in literature: "We must not therefore allow descriptions of reputable characters being overcome by laughter. And similar descriptions of gods are far less allowable" (389a).Then Socrates quotes from the passage of the Iliad (I. 599-600) in which the gods laugh at Hephaestus's limping. So laughter is not only wrong because it is produced by the contemplation of vice, but also because it can make us lose rational control of ourselves, so we may become unsympathetic and even violent.--Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 21-22 (Socrates as quoted by Plato in The Republic, Book III, Part III)