This essay discusses Plato's opposition to the imitative arts, including painting, and how he wanted them excluded from the State. He held this position because, in his view, the arts presented people with mere appearances instead of real things. The paper then examines Leo Tolstoy's and T.S. Eliot's views. Tolstoy felt that art expressed the emotion of life. Eliot believed that good art was a reflection of an understanding of the past. In this way, both Eliot and Tolstoy showed Plato's view to be very narrow in scope. 10 pgs. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
