Didacticism

The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός (didaktikos), "pertaining to instruction",{{Cite web|title=OPTED v0.03 Letter D|url=https://courses.cs.vt.edu/cs2606/Fall08/Projects/Major/2/Data/wb1913_d.htm|access-date=2021-05-18|website=courses.cs.vt.edu|archive-date=2021-05-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210518063123/https://courses.cs.vt.edu/cs2606/Fall08/Projects/Major/2/Data/wb1913_d.htm|url-status=dead}} and signified learning in a fascinating and intriguing manner.{{Cite web|title=didactic {{!}} Origin and meaning of didactic by Online Etymology Dictionary|url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/didactic|access-date=2021-05-18|website=www.etymonline.com|language=en}}{{Cite web|date=2013-09-15|title=Didacticism – Examples and Definition of Didacticism|url=https://literarydevices.net/didacticism/|access-date=2021-05-18|website=Literary Devices|language=en-US}}

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.[http://literarydevices.net/didacticism/ Didacticism in Morality Plays], Retrieved 30 Oct 2013[http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/general/glossary.htm#d Glossary of Literary Terms] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131103044158/http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/general/glossary.htm |date=2013-11-03 }}, The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Retrieved 30 Oct 2013 During the Middle Age, the Roman Catholic chants like the Veni Creator Spiritus, as well as the Eucharistic hymns like the Adoro te devote and Pange lingua are used for fixing within prayers the truths of the Roman Catholic faith to preserve them and pass down from a generation to another. In the Renaissance, the church began a syncretism between pagan and the Christian didactic art, a syncretism that reflected its dominating temporal power and recalled the controversy among the pagan and Christian aristocracy in the fourth century.{{cite book|author=Cynthia White|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PWdzlUBhFLwC&pg=PA176|title=The Emergence of Christianity: Classical Traditions in Contemporary Perspective|page=176|publisher=Fortress Press|date=October 1, 2010|isbn=9780800697471|access-date=July 1, 2021|location=Minneapolis, MN|series=G - Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series|oclc=1056616571}} 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 didacticism 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 called didacticism the worst of "heresies" in his essay The Poetic Principle.

Some instances of didactic literature include:{{citation needed|date=May 2019}}

• Instructions of Kagemni, by Kagemni I(?) (2613–2589 BC?)
• Instruction of Hardjedef, by Hardjedef (between 25th century BC and 24th century BC)
• The Maxims of Ptahhotep, by Ptahhotep (around 2375–2350 BC)
• Works and Days, by Hesiod ({{circa|700 BC}})
• On Horsemanship, by Xenophon ({{circa|350 BC}})
• The Panchatantra, by Vishnu Sarma ({{circa|300 BC}})
• De rerum natura, by Lucretius ({{circa|50 BC}})
• Georgics, by Virgil ({{circa|30 BC}})
• Ars Poetica by Horace ({{circa|18 BC}})
• {{lang|la|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)
• Astronomica by Marcus Manilius ({{circa|AD 14}})
• Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, by Seneca the Younger, ({{circa|65 AD}})
• Cynegetica, by Nemesianus (3rd 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)
• The Puruṣaparīkṣā by Vidyapati
• The 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)
• Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, by Thomas Carlyle (1838–1839)Nordquist, Richard. (2021, February 16). Didacticism: Definition and Examples in Literature. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/didactic-writing-term-1690452
• Critical and Historical Essays, by Thomas Babington Macaulay (1843)
• The Water-Babies, by Charles Kingsley (1863)
• Fors Clavigera, by John Ruskin (1871–1884)
• If-, by Rudyard Kipling (1910)
• Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse (1952)
• Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder (1991)
• The Wizard of Gramarye series by Christopher Stasheff (1968–2004)
• Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life. by F. J. Harvey Darton[https://www2.bc.edu/~rappleb/Kingsley-Latest/KDidacticism.html Didacticism] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150504122400/https://www2.bc.edu/~rappleb/Kingsley-Latest/KDidacticism.html |date=2015-05-04 }}, Boston College Libraries, Retrieved 30 Oct 2013

Some examples of research that investigates didacticism in art, design, architecture and landscape:

• "Du Didactisme en Architecture / On Didacticism in Architecture". (2019). In C. Cucuzzella, C. I. Hammond, S. Goubran, & C. Lalonde (Eds.), Cahiers de Recherche du LEAP (Vol. 3). Potential Architecture Books.
• Cucuzzella, C., Chupin, J.-P., & Hammond, C. (2020). "Eco-didacticism in art and architecture: Design as means for raising awareness". Cities, 102, 102728.{{Cite journal |last1=Cucuzzella |first1=Carmela |last2=Chupin |first2=Jean-Pierre |last3=Hammond |first3=Cynthia |date=July 2020 |title=Eco-didacticism in art and architecture: Design as means for raising awareness |journal=Cities |language=en |volume=102 |pages=102728 |doi=10.1016/j.cities.2020.102728 |s2cid=218962466}}

Some examples of art, design, architecture and landscape projects that present eco-lessons.{{Cite web |title=Eco-didactic Turn in Art and Design in the Public Realm – IDEAS-BE |url=https://ideas-be.ca/project/the-eco-didactic-project/ |access-date=2020-04-22 |language=en-CA}}

• Art for art's sake
• Autodidacticism
• John Cassell, 19th century publisher of educational magazines and books
• Children's literature
• Sebayt
• Wisdom literature

{{Reflist}}

• Glaisyer, Natasha and Sara Pennell. Didactic Literature in England, 1500–1800: Expertise Reconstructed. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003.
• [http://journalofthought.com/ Journal of Thought]. United States, Journal of Thought Fund, 2002.
• Wittig, Claudia. Prodesse et Delectare: Case Studies on Didactic Literature in the European Middle Ages / Fallstudien Zur Didaktischen Literatur Des Europäischen Mittelalters. Germany, De Gruyter, 2019.

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• {{Cite EB1911|wstitle= Didactic Poetry |volume= 8 |last= Gosse |first= Edmund William |author-link= Edmund William Gosse| pages = 202–204 |short = 1}}

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Category:Literary concepts

Category:Didactics

Category:Theories of aesthetics