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Adamism

Movement
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A Russian modernist current stressing fresh perception and new beginnings, contrasting older Symbolism

Detailed Definition
A Russian avant-garde poetic movement closely associated with early Acmeism, emphasizing return to primal naming and Adamic relationship with language as if experiencing and naming things for the first time. Adamist poetry sought to restore original meaning to words corrupted by overuse, creating fresh linguistic encounters with reality. The movement viewed the poet as a new Adam naming creation, approaching language with innocence and precision, recovering the world's tangibility through precise, concrete diction.
Example
Example in poetry:
Adamism appears in William Blake’s “The Tyger,” where the speaker confronts creation with primal, unmediated language: “What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”; In e.e. cummings’ poem “in Just-,” the neologistic phrasing (“mud-luscious,” “puddle-wonderful”) evokes a pre-linguistic, Edenic perception; Robert Duncan’s “Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow” uses mythic, unfiltered diction to access a primordial poetic state; Gary Snyder’s “Riprap” employs elemental, unadorned language (“Lay down these words / Before your mind like rocks”) to mimic Adamic naming; In “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” Blake’s Proverbs of Hell (“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”) reject inherited moral syntax for direct visionary utterance.
Additional Notes
Adamism in poetry refers to the idea of naming things anew—as Adam did in Eden—emphasizing originality, linguistic purity, or the poet’s role as creator; linked to Romantic and modernist ideals.
Also Known As
Adamite tradition Primordial doctrine Adamism in poetry Acmeism
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