Vernon, Mark. "Plato's Dialogues, Part 5: Love and the Perception of Forms." GUARDIAN September 1, 2009.

That there might be a link between love and knowledge is not an idea that many philosophers think about today. But for Plato, the link is deep. In several dialogues, he implies that if you stir up the capacity to love inside you, and apply reason to direct your love in the right way, then you might achieve an understanding of what is good, beautiful and true. It is via this route that he appears to have gained an intuition that has become very influential in western philosophy, the possible existence of transcendent Forms. But before coming to these elusive entities, let us first press this link between love and knowledge. By doing so, we'll approach the question of Forms in the way that Plato himself presents it. . . . Read the whole article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/sep/01/plato-dialogues-forms.