Implicit Didacticism and the Teaching of C.P. Cavafy’s “Ithaka”
Implicit Didacticism and the Teaching of C.P. Cavafy’s “Ithaka”

Summary/Abstract: This article reconsiders the notion of didactic poetry to propose a more flexible concept of implicit didacticism and to explore how it operates in C. P. Cavafy’s work, with particular emphasis on “Ithaka”. Rather than restricting didactic poetry to the explicit, prescriptive mode of Hesiod or Lucretius, we argue that modern lyric can also teach indirectly, allowing ethical and existential insights to emerge through historical imagination, sensual memory, and reflective narration. After a concise overview of the classical tradition of didactic verse and the modern suspicion of overt didacticism, we distinguish between didactic poetry as a genre and didacticism as a reading effect, drawing on reader-response theory and ethical criticism. We then situate “Ithaka” in relation to Cavafy’s three major poetic modes (sensual, historical, philosophical) and offer a close reading of the poem as didactic allegory through myth: a text that reworks the Odyssey intertextually, enters into dialogue with Petronius and Tennyson, addresses its reader in the second person, and articulates a broadly Epicurean outlook that exhorts us to live life to the full. In the final section, we draw on reader-response theory and contemporary educational research to show how “Ithaka” can support student-centred, experiential approaches to literature teaching in secondary and tertiary education. By linking ancient didactic traditions, Cavafian poetics, and classroom practice, we argue that “Ithaka” exemplifies how poetry can “end in wisdom” (Frost, 1965) without sacrificing aesthetic complexity or lapsing into moralism.

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