Editing Didacticism (section)

==Overview==
The term has its origin in the [[Ancient Greek]] word διδακτικός (''didaktikos''), "pertaining to instruction",<ref>{{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}}</ref> and signified learning in a fascinating and intriguing manner.<ref>{{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}}</ref><ref>{{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}}</ref>

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.<ref>[http://literarydevices.net/didacticism/ Didacticism in Morality Plays], Retrieved 30 Oct 2013</ref><ref>[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</ref> 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.<ref>{{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}}</ref> 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 [[Solfège|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]]''.