Word.ws English Dictionary

poetism

poetism noun: an avantgarde approach to art introduced by Karel Teige in Czechoslovakia in the 1920s in reaction to the prevailing proletarian art, encouraging lyricism and an epicurean attitude.

Noun

poetism (uncountable)

  1. An avantgarde approach to art introduced by Karel Teige in Czechoslovakia in the 1920s in reaction to the prevailing proletarian art, encouraging lyricism and an epicurean attitude.
    • And it should be pointed out that poetism is less harmful to poetry than scientism, because although it may make a poetic text seem cranky or pretentious, it will not denature it.1999, Chris Andrews, Poetry and Cosmogony
    • Poetism was intoxicated with life, with its sensuality and lyricism, and for the most part poetism ignored life's darker aspects.2006, Craig Cravens, Culture and Customs of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, page 155

Examples of poetism in a sentence

  • Embracing poetism represented a definite departure of the Devétsil generation from proletarian art and consequently also a "breakup" with the official line of the Communist Party.2010, Ladislav Cabada, Zdenek Benedikt, Intellectuals and the Communist Idea, page 104:
  • Poetism was intended to be more of a “new aesthetic and philosophical attitude” and an “art of living”.2017, Harri Veivo, Jean-Pierre Montier, Françoise Nicol, Beyond Given Knowledge, page 97:

Origin of poetism

Coined by Karel Teige in the 1920s as poet + -ism.

Questions about poetism

What does poetism mean?
Poetism means an avantgarde approach to art introduced by Karel Teige in Czechoslovakia in the 1920s in reaction to the prevailing proletarian art, encouraging lyricism and an epicurean attitude.
How do you use poetism in a sentence?
Embracing poetism represented a definite departure of the Devétsil generation from proletarian art and consequently also a "breakup" with the official line of the Communist Party.
What part of speech is poetism?
Poetism is a noun.

Words near poetism in the dictionary

  1. poetised
  2. poetiser
  3. poetisers
  4. poetises
  5. poetising
  6. poetism
  7. poetist
  8. poetists
  9. poetization
  10. poetize
  11. poetized

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poetism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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