poe...Edgar Allan Poe (for whom Henry Ford was to name a model had not the poet died before they could meet) had an oppinon of the Didactic in his THE POETIC PRINCIPLE. It looks all the more absurd in all CAPS doesn't it? He, Poe, was a foe; an excerpt:

"...I allude to the heresies of The Didactic. It has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral, and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy idea..."

Ah, the heresies of the Didactic. As it turns out, the Poetic Principle (published postumously) is a summary of his artistic ideals. And no, it wasn't that interesting. I only read it for his critism of the didactic; and went to see how the essay was finished, which--as it turns out--was interesting:

"With our modern and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence of the poem. To do this fully we must identify ourselves in fancy with the soul of the old cavalier..."

l'a-ro