Didacticism
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Didacticism is a philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art.[1][2]
Overview
The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός (didaktikos), "related to education and teaching", and signified learning in a fascinating and intriguing manner.[3]
Didactic art was meant both to entertain and to instruct. Didactic plays, for instance, were intended to convey a moral theme or other rich truth to the audience.[4][5] 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.
Around the 19th century the term didactic came to also be used as a criticism for work that appears to be overburdened with instructive, factual, or otherwise educational information, to the detriment of the enjoyment of the reader (a meaning that was quite foreign to Greek thought). Edgar Allan Poe even called didacticism the worst of "heresies" in his essay The Poetic Principle.
Examples
Some instances of didactic literature include:
- Works and Days, by Hesiod (c. 700 BC)
- On Horsemanship, by Xenophon (c. 350 BC)
- The Panchatantra, by Vishnu Sarma (c. 300 BC)
- De rerum natura, by Lucretius (c. 50 BC)
- Georgics, by Virgil (c. 30 BC)
- Ars Poetica by Horace (c. 18 BC)
- Ars Amatoria, by Ovid (1 BC)
- Thirukkural, by Thiruvalluvar (between 2nd century BC and 5th century AD)
- Remedia Amoris, by Ovid (AD 1)
- Medicamina Faciei Femineae, by Ovid (between 1 BC and AD 8)
- Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, by Seneca the Younger, (c. 65 AD)
- Cynegetica, by Nemesianus (4th century AD)
- The Jataka Tales (Buddhist 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)
- Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson (1759)
- The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes (anonymous, 1765)
- The Adventures of Nicholas Experience, by Ignacy Krasicki (1776)
- The Water-Babies, by Charles Kingsley (1863)
- If-, by Rudyard Kipling (1910)
- Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh (1945)
- Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse (1952)
- Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder (1991)
- Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life. by F. J. Harvey Darton[6]
See also
- Art for art's sake
- Autodidactism
- John Cassell, 19th century publisher of educational magazines and books
References
- ^ What’s Wrong with Didacticism? Academia.edu, Retrieved 30 Oct 2013
- ^ Didactic Literature or Didacticism, University of Houston–Clear Lake, Retrieved 30 Oct 2013
- ^ RELIGIOUS AWAKENING STORIES IN LATE MEDIEVAL JAPAN: THE DYNAMICS OF DIDACTICISM, Retrieved 30 Oct 2013
- ^ Didacticism in Morality Plays, Retrieved 30 Oct 2013
- ^ Glossary of Literary Terms, The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Retrieved 30 Oct 2013
- ^ Didacticism, Boston College Libraries, Retrieved 30 Oct 2013
Further reading
- Glaisyer, Natasha and Sara Pennell. Didactic Literature in England, 1500-1800: Expertise Reconstructed'.' (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003).