Didacticism



Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art.

The word "Didacticism" finds its origin in the Greek "didaktikos" or "διδακτικός"; the meaning of the greek word is 'related to education/teaching'.

The primary intention of didactic art is not to entertain, but to teach. Didactic plays, for instance, teach the audience through the use of a moral or a theme. An example of didactic writing is Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism (1711), which offers a range of advice about critics and criticism. An example of didactism in music is the chant Ut queant laxis, which was used by Guido of Arezzo to teach solfege syllables.

The term "didactic" is also used as a criticism for work that appears to be overly burdened with instructive, factual, or otherwise educational information, to the detriment of the enjoyment of the reader. Edgar Allan Poe called didacticism the worst of "heresies" in his essay The Poetic Principle.

Examples
Some instances of didactic literature include:


 * De Rerum Natura, by Lucretius Carus (c. 50 BC)
 * Georgics, by Virgil (c. 30 BC)
 * Ars Poetica by Horace (c. 18 BC)
 * Ars Amatoria, by Ovid (1 BC)
 * Remedia Amoris, by Ovid (AD 1)
 * Medicamina Faciei Femineae, by Ovid (between 1 BC and AD 8)
 * The Jataka Tales (Buddhistic literature, 5th century AD)
 * Philosophus Autodidactus by Ibn Tufail (12th century)
 * Theologus Autodidactus by Ibn al-Nafis (1270s)
 * The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian (1480s)
 * Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan (1678)
 * The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes (anonymous, 1765)
 * The Adventures of Nicholas Experience, by Ignacy Krasicki (1776)
 * Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1813)
 * The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck (1939)
 * Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh (1945)
 * Siddharta, by Herman Hesse (1952)
 * Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder (1991)
 * ''The Sword of Truth, by Terry Goodkind (1994)