This edition offers a full & up-to-date commentary on the last book of the 'Republic', & explores in particular detail the two main subjects of the book: Plato's most famous & uncompromising condemnation of poetry & art, as vehicles of falsehood & purveyors of dangerous emotions, & the Myth of Er, which concludes the whole work with an allegorical vision of the soul's immortality & of an eternally just world-order. The commentary gives careful & critical attention to the arguments deployed by Plato against poets & artists, relating them both to the philosopher's larger ideas & to other Greek views of the subject. The sources & significance of the Myth of Er are fully studied. Among other topics, the introduction places 'Republic 10' in the development of Plato's work, & makes a fresh attempt to trace some of the influences of the book's critique of art on later aesthetic thinking.