ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Summary: Book X. Socrates has now completed the main argument of The Republic; he has defined justice and shown it to be worthwhile. He turns back to the postponed question concerning poetry about human beings. In a surprising move, he banishes poets from the city.

Detailed explanation-2: -Summary: Book VII, 514a-521d. In Book VII, Socrates presents the most beautiful and famous metaphor in Western philosophy: the allegory of the cave. This metaphor is meant to illustrate the effects of education on the human soul.

Detailed explanation-3: -In Book X of Plato’s Republic, Socrates banishes all artists from his ideal State. He argues that the creations of art are farthest removed from truth; and therefore, art turns the mind of the spectator away from truth and toward the realm of becoming.

Detailed explanation-4: -One striking feature of Plato’s Republic is the outright ban of poetry. 1 This ban does not apply only to poems in the contemporary sense: poetry, for Plato, encompasses theater, literature, or anything telling a fictional story.

Detailed explanation-5: -137), “Justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger, ” and he explains that “the same thing is just in all states, the advantage of the established government.” This is a view similar to that expressed by the Athenians in the Melian Dialogue.