Meditations 11:6

First, tragedies. To remind us of what can happen, and that it happens inevitably—and if something gives you pleasure on that stage, it shouldn't cause you anger on this one. You realize that these are things we all have to go through, and that even those who cry aloud "o Mount Cithaeron!" have to endure them. And some excellent lines as well. These, for example:

If I and my two children cannot move the gods

The gods must have their reasons

Or:

And why should we feel anger at the world?

And:

To harvest life like standing stalks of grain and a good many others.

Then, after tragedy, Old Comedy: instructive in its frankness, its plain speaking designed to puncture pretensions. (Diogenes used the same tactic for similar ends.)

Then consider the Middle (and later the New) Comedy and what it aimed at—gradually degenerating into mere realism and empty technique. There are undeniably good passages, even in those writers, but what was the point of it all—the script and staging alike?