Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to present Plato's conception of poetry and to compare it with his conception of philosophy and rhetoric. It is especially the intersection of the human and divine sphere (in the case of poetry and philosophy) or its absence (in the case of rhetoric) which is traced in the inquiry.
According to the main thesis of this chapter Plato still conceives of poetry as partly divinely inspired but contrary to the tradition he reserves for it the formal constituent of poems while the content is identified with the result of the poet's mimetic activity.