Socrates concludes that the arts have a morally corrupting impact on men in that dramatic presentations, for example, provoke us to become enraged, or to burst into tears, or to laugh uproariously; they make men act like women or buffoons. We are deluded into sympathizing with the artifice of the stage, and that is simply bad for our characters.
Socrates closes his discussion of the arts and their place in the Ideal State by saying that there is no place for them. Perhaps we may allow some hymns to the gods and some poems in praise of famous good men, but the most of poetry and drama, including Homer, must be banned from the state.
