I disagree. I think Plato’s description of the cave is more analogous to the individuals that seize the enslaved and drag them to the surface, for it is through reading the text that one is illuminated about their ‘metaphysical blindness’ and proded to ‘turn away’ from the opinion of particulars to a more cultivated life ‘in the light’ of the Good. Plato’s indictment against particulars only holds for any instances of the physical text itself, rather than the intellectual content itself.

Plus, I was surprised to read Dan’s claim that The Republic was written in verse.  Last I checked, it was a dialogue.  It is certainly undeniable that Plato uses various poetic devices (such as metaphors–though some more intellectual robust philosophers huff that they’re analogies, not metaphors), but this does not at all demonstrate that Plato’s writing is poetry, only that it is poetic.  The stoic popularizer, Lucretius, is the only ancient philosopher that I know of who wrote philosophy is verse.

But, while we’re debatting the indirect impact of literary form on philosophic content, I’d venture the claim that The Republic is a dialogue and is the better for it.  Dialogues capture the prodding and plodding reality of the inner intellectual life as it analyzes various ideas, shifting back-and-forth on various positions, and developing ideas into more complex structures.  Sure, it’s certainly less systematic this way.  Just compare Plato with Aristotle, and Augustine’s dialogues with Aquinas’ treatises to see what I mean.  Much less is said substantially, true, but ultimately it is much more vivid and unfortunately, rather familiar.