Bernhard Huss, Didactic Poem, in: Brill's New Pauly. Classical Tradition, Volume II (Dem-Jus), Leiden-Boston 2007, pp. 75-78

Didactic literature see -» Didactic poem

A.Concept
The term Lehrgedicht ('didactic poem'/DP), used in Germany since 1646 and disputed thereafter [1. 10-29], particularly in the 18th cent., is even today not clearly defined. It is frequently not distinguished from 'didactic literature' and 'didactic poetry' and is also extended to cover poetry that has only implicitly didactic intentions (so-called 'indirect didactic poetry' [5.11]). Its definability as a genre was disputed for example in the Middle Ages [3.9]. Such a broad term [survey of scholarship: 7. 19-38] requires the inclusion of almost the whole spectrum of literature of an epoch like that of the Middle Ages (including fables, animal poetry, riddles; cf. [14] that has a predominantly didactic focus. In view of this, a narrower term commends itself: DPs are versified texts, mainly cast in the present tense, with the primary intention of imparting an item of knowledge, however formulated. This requires a presupposed or explicit teacher-student relationship between the author and the addressee [7. 38]. Pleasure in subject-matter innovation is a constant feature of the genre. These texts are particularly strongly represented in those eras that value highly the imparting of 'knowledge' and mostly see no problem with a poetic mode of transmission (Middle Ages, Enlightenment). The most important ancient authors serving as models are Lucretius {De return natura), Virgil (Georgics) and Ovid (Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris, Medicamina faciei femineae).

B. Theoretical Problematic
Besides the problem of defining the term there is the question of whether it is possible to define a poetic genre of didactic poetry [6]; it is characterized by the constitutive tension between didaxis and poiesis. Under the pressure of the mimesis theory as the fundamental criterion of poetic literature, Aristotle (Poet. 1 ) excludes didactic literature from the realm of poetic literature but at the same time introduces the theoretical conception of the DP. Later theory bypasses the Aristotelian judgement [2; 10]: the Tractatus Coislinianus (1st cent. BC) differentiates between mimetic and amimetic poetic literature: the latter is divided into historike and paideutike, which, in turn, are divided into hyphegetike (instructive) and theoretike. In that way the DP was rescued, just as it was with Diomedes (4th cent. AD), who was extremely influential in the following period. He distinguishes between three flexible main forms: genus activum (imitativum, dramaticon, mimeticon), genus enarrativum (enuntiativum, exegeticon, apangelticon), genus commune (mixtum, koinon, micton). Under the genus enarrativum,  which is characterized by a uniform author-narrator, comes aphoristic literature (angeltice) and narrative-genealogical literature (historice), as well as the DP (didascalice).

The Middle Ages extended this tripartite schema in modified form further with Bede (673-735), who repeated it verbatim in places, by elevating the didascalicum in the poetological hierarchy (without making an explicit distinction between verse and prose in the process) [7. 39-44]: in Eberhard of Bethune's (ca.  1200) Grecismus, the three principal genres are dragmaticon, hermeneticon, didascalicon, and in John of Garlandia (Poetria, 1252), the genus commune, which in Diomedes was still supposed to describe the epic, is called didascalicon, idest doctrinale. In the dominant key of the Horatian dual definition of literature (Ars 3 3 3 : 'aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae', a dichotomy which the DP seemed to form impeccably into a synthesis), the Renaissance initially adopted the medieval concepts, but 'rediscovery' of Aristotle's Poetica from the middle of the 16th cent, led to a confrontation with his determination outlined above (-» genre/genre theory). The resulting diversity of learned views ranged from acceptance of the determination (e.g. by the Horace commentator F. Luisinus and by A. Riccoboni) to its categorical rejection by J. C. Scaliger, who supported DPs against the background of a markedly didactic concept of literature and by resorting to the old criterion of verse for a definition of poetry [6. 74-81]. Certainly an attempt was made to advance beyond Aristotle while maintaining his concept of mimesis. Thus G. Fracastoro (Naugerius, 1 540) defines the (Aristotelian-confirmed) universal instead of the particular as an object of poetic imitation, with the poet becoming the mediator of the real nature of things. The gradual distancing from Aristotle becomes rejection with later theoreticians: F. Bacon  (Advancement of learning, 1608/23) attributes empirical reality to philosophy as object and by contrast, attributes the world of imagination to literature. Following in the same direction, the theories during the English Restoration (1660-1700) endow literature with the capacity of representing psychologically motivated models, of beings in nature at most still loosely connected to the empirical world, including universal and abstract concepts. That took, away from DPs the Aristotelian stigma of their amimetic character and provided a theoretical basis for their revival in the 18th cent. [6. 84-88]. A little later, efforts to establish a didactic main genre reached their climax with Ch. Batteux [13. 26-29]. Thereafter, the DP lost ground in a theoretical and practical sense. In Germany, that was due, among other things, to Les- sing's Aristotelian-based disparagement of the DP [13.29 f].

C. Poetic Practice
The Middle Ages inherited the predominantly pagan tradition of the ancient DP, which was flanked, however, by Christian instructive literature (e. g. Commodian, Orientius, Prudentius [14. 20]). The dominant language of the medieval DP was Latin, nourished by a) language of specialization, and b) the Virgilian-Horatian- Ovidian tradition. Vernacular DPs [7. 212-216] were rare. The extremely numerous (Index: [7. 430- 444]) medieval Latin DPs mostly serve a practical instructive purpose, are strongly issue-related and are clearly sub-divided on a rhetorical-didactic basis. Thematically they concentrate on three areas: grammar/rhetoric/poetics, medicine/botany and astronomy/mathematics/arithmetic. The early medieval works of W. Strabo (De cultura hortorum) and W. von Priim (De mensium duodecim nominibus) areexamples of a particularly successful adoption of ancient models [9.173 177]. In the Renaissance, a development took place that ran the range from themedieval version of versified manual to the polished literary classical version of the DP in the ancient mould [11. 24]. However, even in innovative Italy, this is a gradual and not abrupt process ([7. 28-31, 373], a contrary view in [11]). The persistence of the categories of DPs in the Middle Ages continued, especially in the Humanistic domain [7. 374-397], and just as firmly did the use of Latin: about one half of the DPs of the Italian Renaissance are in Latin [1 1. 8). Thematically, Renaissance DPs are not substantially different from those of the Middle Ages. Weightier' themes are generally treated in Latin [11. 10].  Under the influence of the Humanistic imitafio-theory [1 1. 91], among other things, interest slowly shifted away from the handling of the res (archaically still in the foreground e.g. in Dati, Sfera, early 1 5th cent, [il. 27-35])  to tne shapingof the carmen (virtuoso: G. Pontano, Urania, end of the 15th cent.; G.Vida, Scac- chia, ludus, ca. 1520; G. Fracastoro, Syphilis, 1530), down to the explicit rejection in B.Baldi's Nautica (ca. 1590) of there being any possibility of transmitting knowledge through didactic literature [11. 236-239]. After a low-point during the Baroque era [1. 108-131], the DP enjoyed one last upswing in the Enlightenment. Highly Influential in that were A. Pope's Essay on criticism (1709), influenced by Horace, his fragment Essay on man (1733 ff.), as well as J. Thomson's Seasons (1726/30), inspired by Virgil and Lucretius [15]. While French didactic literature (L. Racine, De la grace. La religion, 1742; A. Chenier, Hermes, fragmentary, 2nd half of the 18th cent.) is firmly rooted in the aristocratic milieu, the German DP of the 18th cent, is aphenomenon of the bourgeoisie Enlightenment. Thematically, moral-philosophical problems predominate, while specialist DPs are in the minority and are especially concerned with poetics [13. 53-68]. The Enlightenment concept 'humanities' implies a favouring of the res over the carmen [13.12 f.]. Amongst the most important authors are B. H. Brockes, A. v. Haller, J. J. Bodmer. The literary attachment to ancient auctores, especially Lucretius, continued; in terms of content, however, modern authorities(Newton, Leibniz) strongly gained influence [13. 142-144]. poetics, the DP lost its status at the end of the 1 8th cent., due to the increasingly stronger emphasis on poetic subjectivity (symptomatic was the influence of E. Young's Night thoughts, 1742-45) and to immanent-aesthetic justification of poetic creativity [13.4, 248 f.]. Moreover, at this time, Latin, its longtime, steady support, became weakened [7. 394-397].

-» Didactic poetry

1 L. L. Albertsen, Das Lehrgedicht, 1967 2I. Beh- rens, Die Lehre von der Einteilung der Dichtkunst, 1940 3 B. Boesch, Lehrhafte Literatur,1977 4 U. Broich, Das Lehrgedicht als Teil der epischen Tradition des englischen Klassizismus, in: Germanisch-romanische Monatsschrift 13, 1963, 147-163 5 L. Danzi, Prime note sulla poesia didascalia e scientifica tra XVIII e XIX secolo, in: Bardazzi, Giovanni/Grosrichard, Alain (eds.), Denouement des Lumieres et invention romantique. Actes du Colloque de Geneve, 24-15 novembre 2000, 2004, 143-60 6 B. Effe, Dichtungund Lehre, 1977 7 B. Fabian, Das Lehrgedicht als Problem der Poetik, in:H. R. Jauss (ed.), Die nicht mehr schonen Kiinste, 1968, 67-89 8T. Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht im Mittelalter, 1997 9 E. Leibfried,Philosophisches Lehrgedicht und Fabel, in: NHL 11, 1974, 75-90 10 A. Onnerfors, Die lateinische Literatur der Karolingerzeit, in: NHL 6, 1985, 151-187 11 E. POhlmann, Charakteristikades romi- schen Lehrgedichts, in: ANRW 1.3, 813-901 12 G. Roellenbleck, Das epische Lehrgedicht Italians im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, 1975 13 A.-M. Schmidt, La poesie scientifique en France au seizieme siecle, 1938 14 C. Siegrist, Das Lehrgedicht der Aufklarung, 1974 15 B. Sowinski, Lehrhafte Dichtung des Mittelalters 1 97 1 16 E. Wolff, Dichtung und Prosa im Dienste der Philosophic, in: NHL 1 1, 1984, 1 5 5-104.

Additional Bibliography Y. A. Haskell, Loyola's Bees: Ideology and Industry in Jesuit Latin Didactic Poetry, 1003. Y. A. Haskell, P. R. Hardie (eds.), Poets and Teachers: Latin Didactic Poetry and the Didactic Authority of the Latin Poet from the Renaissance to the Present, 1999.

Bernhard Huss