By: Nathan Bennett Candra Jordan Cody Harvey Jen Hoy Stephanie Mr. Samakosky Period 2 Advanced English 3/4

 A Simple Breakdown of Didactic Literature: writing that teaches.  Didactic is derived from Greek language and it means “to teach”.  Didactic literature teaches values in a society such as wisdom and teach basic rules of behavior in public and private. The stories generally end with a simple moral to make a point of what the writer was trying to convey.

 Rumi:  Rumi Was born in Central Asia in the city of Balkh. His family moved to Anatolia (Turkey) and settled in the capital city, Konya.  After his father died, He became a religious teacher and gained a large circle of disciples as well.  Rumi’s Friend Shams was murdered by his own followers out of jealousy which played a large part in his poetry.  Rumi’s most famous work is the Masnavi, which is a long poem he wrote to say that he would continue to give guidance to his disciples for future generations.  Rumi wrote quite often while standing, walking, or doing something and also did not revise his work very often.  The Masnavi made Rumi immortal because of its being the most important part of Sufi Literature ever written.

 The wise man is the leader and he makes his own decisions. He is God himself. He guides us(The half-wise and the fool on occasion). His torch is his knowledge which he guides us with.  The Half-wise(Us as humans) Follow god and know why. We understand why we follow him and learn from him but we aren’t omniscient. We can be close to it, but never can we actually be omniscient.  The fool is the part of the human race who follows God’s word but doesn’t know why. He may listen to his words, But he isn’t really understanding the true meaning to it.  Rumi’s purpose for writing this poem was to show his affection for the wise man(God). Rumi Was very attached to God and his poetry reflected it.

 Knowing Rumi’s Affection for God, something is going to resemble god in this poem.  The bird resembles God. He Gave the counsels as a teaching to help guide the person in the future. Though he made the man look like a fool, he taught him/attempted to teach his a lesson which would help him later.  The man represents us as humans who follow God but do not take his counsels into mind and accept them as teachings.  Throughout the course of this poem, Rumi conveyed the idea that humans are ignorant to god and his teachings, which we will suffer greatly for just like the man in this poem did.