Adam's Song

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1985

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Study Guide

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Adam’s Song” is not written in any particular meter. Some stanzas, such as the first and last, could be scanned as highly variable trimeter or pentameter, respectively. However, the poem’s stress placements are difficult to pinpoint and will vary from reader to reader. The poem’s second line, for instance, could be read as either “is killed in our own time” or “is killed in our own time.” Though the first reading scans as perfect iambic trimeter, the second reading emphasizes the poem’s shift to the present tense, and so both are viable interpretations. Line 25 is another strong example of the work’s unstable meter, and could be read either “heart, you lie still in me as the dew is” or “heart, you lie still in me as the dew is.” Since most of the poem’s lines vary in length or are open to metrical interpretations and variations, it is difficult to use the poem’s meter as evidence for particular readings. In this way, the poem is best thought of as a free verse poem with no strict metrical form.

Free verse is an interesting choice insofar as it resonates with the poem’s larger themes of freewill and self-expression. Free verse—since it is not contained by external formal rules—is typically interpreted as allowing the poet-speaker greater degrees of self-expression. It is, again, difficult to say whether Walcott uses free verse to suggest such a freedom. Adam’s use of rhymed pentameter in the poem’s titular song proves a strong counterexample to free verse’s aid to self-expression.

Biblical Allusion

Though Walcott’s language in “Adam’s Song” is relatively simple, it draws upon a long tradition of Biblical translation and interpretation. Allusion is a literary device wherein the author or speaker makes connections—implicit or explicit—between other texts. “Adam’s Song” contains a number of subtle allusions to Biblical texts that help to expand the poem’s scope beyond the Garden of Eden.

One of the clearest examples of these allusions is the poem’s reference to “vipers” who take over Adam and Eve’s world (Line 11). With the vipers in the place of the original humans, their name calls to mind Matthew 3:7 from the New Testament, which calls the Pharisees and Sadducees—members of two religious sects that did not believe in Christ’s doctrine of love. Matthew refers to these groups as a “generation of vipers” (3:7), a phrase that later repeats at 12:34, where he asks, “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?” (12:34).

Rhyme

“Adam’s Song” slips in and out of rhymed stanzas. The poem’s first and last stanzas are rhyming quatrains with an ABAB rhyme scheme. Staying true to this traditional form, they are also the stanzas that stay closest to a traditional meter. The rigid form of these two stanzas—particularly compared with the varying stanza and line lengths in the middle stanzas—give the poem a sense of structure. The poem’s relatively scarce use of rhyme also works to make the rhymes that occur more pronounced. The first and last stanzas, in particular, frame the poem like walls due to their formal rigidity. The inner stanzas, meanwhile, demonstrate much more freedom of expression. In this way, the poem’s larger structure mimics a walled garden with artificial structures that work to protect areas of wild. The lack of rhymes in the poem’s inner stanzas could represent either Adam and Eve’s freedom within the garden or the chaos that the expression of their freedom wrought.