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Dadaism (Europe)

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

WWI-era anti-art movement using absurdity, chance, and nonsense in poetry

Detailed Definition
Dadaism (Europe) was a radical, anti-war, anti-bourgeois artistic movement (c. 1916–1924) that used poetry, performance, and visual art to subvert rationality and tradition; its poetic practices included sound poems, cut-ups, and manifestos that prioritized chaos, spontaneity, and nihilistic critique.
Example
Example in poetry:
Dadaism (Europe): Hugo Ball’s “Karawane” — “jolifanto bambla ô falli bambla” — uses nonsense syllables to reject logic and war-torn rationality.
Additional Notes
Dadaism (Europe) centered in Zurich, Berlin, Paris during/after WWI. Anti-war, anti-bourgeois movement using chance and absurdity. Related to Surrealism. See Hugo Ball's Cabaret Voltaire. Continental European focus of Dada movement.
Also Known As
European Dadaism Continental anti-art Zürich-Paris movement European absurdism
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