/lit/ - Literature

I'm reading the Republic and I'm don't really understand why it is written as a dialogue. There are some parts where the characters converse and someone besides Socrates actually makes a point(like the brothers absolutely BTFO'd socrates on justice, I'm still waiting for him to recover),but other than that the dialogue is just.
>Socrates(S): Something
>Other(O): Yup
>S: Something else
>O: Uh Huh
>S: blah blah
>O: Exactly!
Couldn't that be left as normal text?

t. Pleb

>For Mom.