An example may be found in Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism (published 1711), which offers a range of criticism and advice.
The term "didactic" also refers to texts (and by extension, media, such as film or television) that are overburdened with instructive, factual, and/or otherwise "educational" information, sometimes to the detriment of a reader's (or viewer's) enjoyment. The opposite of "didactic" is "non-didactic." If a writer is more concerned with artistic qualities and techniques than with conveying a message, then that piece of work is considered to be non-didactic, even if it is instructive/educational.
Some have suggested that nearly all of the best poetry is didactic. Contrarily, Edgar Allan Poe called didacticism the worst of "heresies" in his essay The Poetic Principle (before 1850).
Other examples of didactic literature include:
- Works and Days, by Hesiod (700 BCE)
- De Rerum Natura, by Lucretius Carus (1st century BCE)
- Georgics, by Virgil (29 BCE)
- The Jataka Tales (Buddhistic literature, 5th century)
- 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 Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
- The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck (1939)
- Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (1957)
- Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder (1991)
Didactic plays teach the audience through the use of a moral or a theme.
A good example of didactism in music is the chant Ut queant laxis, which was used by Guido of Arezzo to teach solfege syllables.
See also
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Last updated on Friday September 19, 2008 at 03:20:01 PDT (GMT -0700)
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