Socratic Inquiry
... This Socratic inquiry is both a gathering of facts, facts which determine that poet is nothing more than an imitator and an inquiry into the essential make up of poets and poetry that set it apart from what Socrates views as being valued in society. ... Socrates begins his inquiry by establishing who is involved in truth in society because those closest to God and the truth are the most valuable to a society. ... This Socratic inquiry continues on with a gathering of a sort of Socratic fact, which is the way in which “Book X” gathers its understanding and distrust of a poet and his beliefs that this will never change because “the imitative are is an inferior who from intercourse with an inferior has inferior offspring.