In Plato's Republic, Book10, Socrates argues that the poets are to be banished from

the ideal state, the Republican City, for all poetry is based on 'Imitation'. No thing is
true; every thing is an appearance or illusion of the idea of the thing. A thing is once
away from reality/truth; what a poet creates is an 'imitation' or appearance of an
appearance, and thus twice away from reality/truth. Socrates refers to 3 kinds of a
bed--the bed made by the divine; the bed made by the carpenter[once away from
reality]; the bed made by the painter[twice away from reality]. Thus the poets are
liars, and therefore they should be expelled from the City of ideal governance.

In understanding why Socrates expels the poets from the Republic, I think some
background is needed. The argument here is that the philosopher- king is the only
one capable of understanding the forms, or the essence of truth. It is they alone
who comprehend truth and have the responsibility of telling all of us what that truth
is. Socrates sees a danger in having others who perceive to know what truth is
assume the role of truth teller. Socrates argues that poets and poetry tells us
images of the truth. The reason for this is because poets and poetry are more
concerned with the lyrical nature of the story and see the truth as nothing more
than setting for their tales. It should be noted that he is aiming his critique at less
than competent story tellers, such as novices or others who seek to make a living
off of telling stories. I am not sure Socrates would be able to level this criticism at
an Sophocles, Aeschylus, or Homer. Regardless, due to the fact that the standard
storyteller is more concerned with their story and its lyricism or "prettiness" as
opposed to the serious and focused pursuit of truth, they pose a threat to the entire
kingdom because people will become confused with the truth, as seen through the
philosopher's eyes, and the images of the truth, as depicted through the poets'. It
is because of this that Socrates expels the poets. If we want to take this to a
modern application, there are modern artists who would like to confuse us with their
pursuit of art as opposed to a more serious and truth- ladened journey towards the
form of art. For example, Beethoven's art should not be considered even close to
the same category as Britney Spears'. The former was driven by a pursuit to
expose musical notions of truth, while the latter is driven by something else that
might confuse both issues. If we applied the Socratic method in this setting, he
would argue that Spears should be expelled because of the tendency to confuse her
presentation of the musical truth as something that could even be close to
presented along side Beethoven's.