Thursday's Term to Learn - Didactic Poetry

Didactic Poetry is instructional poetry. The poet expected the reader to learn skills, science, philosophy, etc. from the didactic verses. Didactic poetry was usually written in the dactylic hexameters of epic poetry, even when the purpose was humorous. It was not considered its own genre.

Examples of didactic poetry include Vergil's Georgics, Ovid's Ars Amatoria, and Hesiod's Theogony.

The word didactic comes from the Greek verb didaskein "to teach".

Reference: Alessandro Schiesaro "didactic poetry" The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth. © Oxford University Press 1949, 1970, 1996, 2005.

More Thursdays' Terms to Learn