Shelley thought all didactic poetry an 'abhorrence, ' and most of the Romantics agreed with this judgment. Critics in this century have been less dismissive of the genre, but seem puzzled by it. There has been a tendency to treat a didactic poem as though it were a kind of lyric, in which the focus of interest lies in the emotions and feelings of the writer. But didactic poetry has a purpose, history, and character of its own. This original and...