[1][2][3] In art, design, architecture, and landscape, didacticism is a conceptual approach that is driven by the urgent need to explain.
[3] The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός (didaktikos), "pertaining to instruction",[4] and signified learning in a fascinating and intriguing manner.
An example of didacticism in music is the chant Ut queant laxis, which was used by Guido of Arezzo to teach 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.