Plato's belief was that art is fundamentally based on imitation. It
             was this imitation which made art inferior, combined with the
             unsuitable moral content of some art. Plato's condemnation of art is
             seen by some as too rationalist and "depriving it of all its charms" (Otto
             Modern objections to Plato's theory of art assert that he fails to
             discover the specific nature of artist creation; that the process of
             imitation is necessary, creating a new reality from an artist's own
             imagination. W.J. Verdenius, in examining the whole issue, asks two
             questions which I shall deal with: "Firstly whether Plato really intended
             imitation to mean a slavish copy, and secondly, whether modern
             aestheticians are right in disregarding the imitative elements in art and
             in considering phantasy and self-expression to be it's fundamental
             On poetic inspiration, Plato says in the "Ion": "God takes away the
             the mind of these men and uses them as his ministers...in order that we
             who hear them may know that it is not they who utter these words of
             great price when they are out of their wits, but that it is God himself
             who speaks and addresses us through them."
             Here we appear to have a strange paradox; for Plato writes of the
             the goodness of gods but tries to use this to condemn at least the content
             of legends concerning mischievous gods. So if it is the Muse who
             inspires and communicates through artists, and having established that
             "There is no falsehood at all in the realm of the spiritual and divine"
             (382e), how can what the poets say be condemned? This is a
             the contradiction which Plato only partly resolves: "We can only conclude
             that the artist himself is to blame for confusing the inspiration of the
             Muse" (Verdenius) thus the artist is not in a state of total possession by
             the Muse and the artist's own feelings and character influence the work
             Plato realises the dependence of the artist on the Muse; ...