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It may be asked why Plato banned the poets from his ideal Republic. Is it not, perhaps, because poetry seeks to move the feelings of its hearers or readers and that feeling induced from outside, as by poetry, can be carried to an extreme point and sweep a man off his feet, as the saying is, so that he acts on impulse or from ungoverned emotion and passion?

-- Notebooks Category 14: The Arts in Culture > Chapter 4 : Reflections On Specific Arts > # 75