Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
DIDACTIC POETRY
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: DEM-DIO
del.icio.us it!
|
DIDACTIC See also:POETRY , that See also:form of See also:verse the aim of which is, less to excite the hearer by See also:passion or move him by pathos, than to instruct his mind and improve his morals. The See also:Greek word SiSaarucos signifies a teacher, from the verb SiSavKew, and poetry of the class under discussion approaches us with the arts and See also:graces of a schoolmaster. At no See also:time was it found convenient to combine lyrical verse with instruction, and there-fore from the beginning of literature the didactic poets have chosen a form approaching the epical. See also:Modern See also:criticism, which discourages the epic, and is increasingly anxious to limit the word " poetry " to lyric, is inclined to exclude the See also:term " didactic poetry " from our nomenclature, as a phrase absurd in itself. It is indeed more than probable that didactic verse is hopelessly obsolete. Definite See also:information is now to be found in a thousand shapes, directly and boldly presented in clear and technical See also:prose. No See also:farmer, however elegant, will. any longer choose to study See also:agriculture in hexameters, or even in See also:Tusser's shambling See also:metre. The sciences and the professions will not See also:waste their time onmethods of instruction which must, from their very nature, be artless, inexact and vague. But in the See also:morning of the See also:world, those who taught with authority might well believe that verse was the proper, See also:nay, the only serious vehicle of their instruction. What they knew was extremely limited, and in its nature it was See also:simple and straightforward; it had little technical subtlety; it constantly lapsed into the fabulous and the conjectural. Not only could what See also:early sages knew, or guessed, about See also:astronomy and See also:medicine and See also:geography be conveniently put into See also:rolling verse, but, in the See also:absence of all written books, this was the easiest way in which information could be made attractive to the See also:ear and be retained by the memory. In the prehistoric See also:dawn of Greek See also:civilization there appear to have been three classes of poetry, to which the literature of See also:Europe looks back as to its triple See also:fountain-See also:head. There were romantic epics, dealing with the adventures of gods and heroes; these See also:Homer represents. There were mystic chants and religious odes, purely lyrical in See also:character, of which the best Orphic See also:Hymns must have been the type. And lastly there was a See also:great See also:body of verse occupied entirely with increasing the knowledge of citizens in useful branches of See also:art and observation; these were the beginnings of didactic poetry, and we class them together under the dim name of See also:Hesiod. It is impossible to date these earliest didactic poems, which nevertheless set the See also:fashion of form which has been preserved ever since. The See also:Works and Days, which passes as the See also:direct masterpiece of Hesiod (q.v.), is the type of all the poetry which has had See also:education as its aim. Hesiod is supposed to have been a tiller of the ground in a Boeotian See also:village, who determined to enrich his neighbours' minds by putting his own ripe stores of useful information into sonorous metre. Historically examined, the See also:legend of Hesiod becomes a See also:shadow, but the substance of the poems attributed to him remains. The genuine parts of the Works and Days, which See also:Professor See also: The great poem of Parmenides On Nature and those of See also:Empedocles exist only in fragments, but enough remains to show that these poets carried on the didactic method in See also:mythology. Cleostratus of Tenedos wrote an astronomical poem in. the 6th See also:century, and See also:Periander a medical one in the 4th, but didactic poetry did not flourish again in See also:Greece until the 3rd century, when See also:Aratus, in the Alexandrian age, wrote his famous Phenomena, a poem about things seen in the heavens. Other later Greek didactic poets were See also:Nicander, and perhaps See also:Euphorion. It was from the hands of these Alexandrian writers that the See also:genius of didactic poetry passed over to See also:Rome, since, although it is possible that some of the lost works of the early See also:republic, and in particular those of See also:Ennius, may have possessed an educational character, the first and by far the greatest didactic Latin poet known to us is See also:Lucretius. A highly finished See also:translation by See also:Cicero into Latin hexameters of the See also:principal works of Aratus is believed to have See also:drawn the See also:attention of Lucretius to this school of Greek poetry, and it was not without reference to the Greeks, although in a more archaic and far purer See also:taste, that he composed, in the at century before See also:Christ, his magnificent De rerum natura. By universal consent, this is the noblest didactic poem in the literature of the world. It was intended to instruct See also:man-See also:kind in the See also:interpretation and in the working of the See also:system of See also:philosophy revealed by See also:Epicurus, which at that time was exciting the sympathetic attention of all classes of See also:Roman society. What gave the poem of Lucretius its extraordinary See also:interest, and what has prolonged and even increased its vitality, vas the imaginative and illustrative insight of the author, piercing and See also:lighting up the recesses of human experience. On a See also:lower intellectual level, but of a still greater technical excellence, was the Georgics of See also:Virgil, a poem on the processes of agriculture, published about 30 B.C. The brilliant See also:execution of this famous See also:work has justly made it the type and unapproachable See also:standard of all poetry which desires to impart useful information in the See also:guise of exquisite literature. Himself once a farmer on the See also:banks of the Mincio, Virgil, at the See also:apex of his genius, set himself in his Campanian See also:villa to recall whatever had been essential in the agricultural See also:life of his boyish See also:home, and the result, in spite of the ardours of the subject, was what J. W. Mackail has called " the most splendid See also:literary See also:production of the See also:Empire." In the See also:rest of surviving Latin didactic poetry, the See also:influence and the See also:imitation of Virgil and Lucretius are See also:manifest. See also:Manilius, turning again to See also:Alexandria, produced a See also:fine Astronomica towards the See also:close of the reign of See also:Augustus. See also:Columella, regretting that Virgil had omitted to sing of gardens, composed a smooth poem on See also:horticulture. Natural philosophy inspired I.ucilius junior, of whom a didactic poem on See also:Etna survives. See also:Long afterwards, under See also:Diocletian, a poet of See also:Carthage, See also:Nemesianus, wrote in the manner of Virgil the Cynegetica, a poem on See also:hunting with See also:dogs, which has had numerous imitations in later See also:European literatures. These are the most important specimens of didactic poetry which See also:ancient Rome has handed down to us.
In Anglo-Saxon and early See also:English poetic literature, and especially in the religious See also:part of it, an See also:element of didacticism is not to be overlooked. But it would be difficult to say that any-thing of importance was written in verse with the See also:sole purpose of imparting information, until we reach the 16th century. Some of the later See also:medieval allegories are didactic or nothing. The first poem, however, which we can in any reasonable way compare with the classic works of which we have been speaking is the Hundreth Pointes of See also:Good Husbandrie, published in 1557 by See also: After the Restoration, as the lyrical element rapidly died out of English poetry, there was more and more See also:room See also:left for educational See also:rhetoric in verse. The poems about See also:prosody, founded upon See also:Horace, and signed by See also: This kind of literature had already been exposed, and discouraged, by the teaching of See also:Wordsworth, who had insisted on the imperative See also:necessity of charging all poetry with See also:imagination and passion. Oddly enough, The Excursion of Wordsworth himself is perhaps the most didactic poem of the 19th century, but it must be acknowledged that his influence, in this direction, was saner than his practice. Since the days of See also:Coleridge and See also:Shelley it has been almost impossible to conceive a poet of any value composing in verse a work written with the purpose of inculcating useful information.
The See also:history of didactic poetry in See also:France repeats, in great measure, but in drearier See also:language, that of See also:England. Boileau, like Pope, but with a more definite purpose as a teacher, offered instruction in his Art poetique and in his Epistles. But his See also:doctrine was always literary, not purely educational. At the beginning of the 18th century, the younger See also:Racine (1692—1763) wrote sermons in verse, and at the close of it the See also:Abbe See also:Delille (1738—1813) tried to imitate Virgil in poems about horticulture. Between these two there lies a vast mass of verse written for the See also:indulgence of See also:intellect rather than at the dictates of the See also:heart; wherever this aims at increasing knowledge, it at once becomes basely and flatly didactic. There is nothing in See also:French literature of the transitional class that deserves mention beside The Task or The Excursion.
During the century which preceded the Romantic revival of poetry in See also:Germany, didactic verse was cultivated in that See also:country on the lines of imitation of the French, but with a greater dryness and oh a lower level of utility. Modern See also:German literature began with See also: Johann See also:Peter Uz (1720-1796) wrote a Theodicee, which was very popular, and not without dignity. Johann See also:Jacob Dusch (1725—1787) undertook to put The Sciences into the eight books of a great didactic poem. Tiedge (1752—1840) was the last of the school; in a once-famous Urania, he sang of See also:God and See also:Immortality and Liberty. These German pieces were the most unswervingly didactic that any modern European literature has produced. There was hardly the pretence of introducing into them descriptions of natural beauty, as the English poets did, or of See also:grace and wit like the French. The German poets simply poured into a lumbering See also:mould of verse as much solid information and direct instruction as the form would hold. Didactic poetry has, in modern times, been antipathetic to the spirit of the Latin peoples, and neither See also:Italian nor See also:Spanish literature has produced a really notable work in this class. An examination of the poems, ancient and modern, which have been mentioned above, will show that from See also:primitive times there have been two classes of poetic work to which the epithet didactic has been given. It is desirable to distinguish these a little more exactly. One is the pure See also:instrument of teaching, the poetry which desires to impart all that it knows about the growing of cabbages or the prevention of disasters at See also:sea, the revolution of the See also:planets or the blessings of inoculation. This is didactic poetry proper, and this, it is almost certain, became irrevocably obsolete at the close of the 18th century. No future Virgil will give the world a second Georgics. But there is another See also:species which it is very improbable that criticism has entirely dislodged; that is the poetry which combines, with philosophical instruction, an impetus of imaginative See also:movement, and a certain definite cultivation of. See also:fire and beauty. In hands so See also:noble as those of Lucretius and See also:Goethe this species of didactic poetry has enriched the world with durable masterpieces, and, although the circle of readers which will endure scientific disquisition in the bonds of verse grows narrower and narrower, it is probable that the great poet who is also a great thinker will now and again insist on being heard. In See also:Sully-Prudhomme France has possessed an eminent writer whose methods are directly instructive, and both La See also:Justice (1878) and Le See also:Bonheur (1888) are typically didactic poems. Perhaps future historians may name these as the latest of their class. (E. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] DIDACHE, THE |
[next] DIDEROT, DENIS (1713-1784) |