Abstract
The vastly underrated Plutus receives at least some of its due in this paper. At its beginning, I attempt to locate Plutus within both the Hegelian discourse on comedy and within Hume's poetical and philosophical fictions. Employing the same method of close textual analysis that I employed in Philosophy and Comedy: Aristophanes, Logos, and Eros (Indiana UP, 2008), I focus upon the thoroughgoing materialism of the poor farmer Chremylus who laments the unjust distribution of wealth (personified in the blind god Plutus), and who seeks to restore the god's sight so as to obtain a large amount of the wealth he lacks. The critical section of the play occurs in an exchange with Poverty or Need (Penia), who is depicted as an ugly hag but who speaks beautifully (recalling Theaetetus in the eponymous Platonic dialogue). Aristophanic music subtly sings the glory of need as the spur to all that is good in human actions, as it mocks wealth as a standard of human worth.
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