Gertrude Stein is a very enigmatic and perplexing author; however that is part of her charm. She brings the art form of writing to life by focusing on the sound, diction, and syntax of her words. The experience is meant to be confusing for the reader, one is expected to mull over the concepts. As a Modernist writer Stein wanted to create something new. In order for Stein to create new concepts she had to put much thought into the development of her writing; thereby expecting the reader to put in the same amount of thought into understanding her writings. To find my own meaning of Stein's literature I reread her poems several times and sometimes even aloud. This technique helped me to internalize her work and fully appreciate her use of repetition and alliteration. Additionally, I found The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas very useful in my efforts to piece together an understanding of Stein. The autobiography was much clearer cut and gave explicit details about Stein which contributed to my better understanding her works.
Repetition plays a huge role in Stein's characterizations in both The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and “Tender Buttons”. She often repeats the same phrase multiple times to place emphasis or set up a situation of a play on words. Stein also repeats the same phrase but in a juxtaposing manner to question validity or authority. The first time I noticed Stein's affinity for repetition was in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. She constantly mentions Alice's desire to write a book about all the wives of geniuses she has met ( 13, 237). This focus caused me to look for such a pattern in her other works, such as “Tender Buttons”. I noticed that Stein likes variety and chooses different techniques for each poem; however her use of repetition is quite poignant. For example, in the poem “A Long Dress” (467) the word “current” appears three times. The positioning of the word is also slightly indented each time it is repeated. I believe this is to create a visual current to match the flow of the dress. The image of a current also reminded me of the waves of an ocean and the fluidity of a current.
Stein also employs the use of alliteration to help her audience connect further with her work. By utilizing alliteration Stein gives the words a floating quality. The words seem light as air and flow from one to the other. While her words do achieve a lightness when she uses alliteration, this technique also causes the reader to constantly have to reread her passages to extrapolate a meaning. One such example is in “Suppose An Eyes” (475) when Gertrude writes, “ Little sales ladies little sales ladies little saddles of mutton.” The alliteration is apparent within this quote; however the meaning is not abundantly clear. Attempting to understand this poem is a great feat which still alludes me as does the meaning of some of her other poems. Although, I believe Stein wanted us to find our own personal understanding to most of her poems, I believe she knew that we would not all make a connection to every single poem she wrote, because if we did then it would be conventional art. Another example of alliteration in “Tender Buttons” is in “This Is This Dress, Aider” (476) when Stein writes, “Aider, why aider why whow, whow stop touch aider whow, aider stop the muncher, muncher munchers.” The alliteration here is that of a parallel structure between the a and the w and the a and the m with the s and t sounds as a break in the middle. I think Stein wanted to create an emphasis of questioning in this line. Why is the aider not stopping at any point or even possibly preforming his duty? The sounds of whow being repeated and muncher also help the reader to process her thought, because they are impressed upon the mind.
To conclude, Gertrude Stein uses repetition and alliteration to her advantage in her works. She always enhances the meaning of a simple object, food, or room. Like many Modernists, such as Virginia Woolf, I believe her goal was for the reader to realize how much we take for granted in life. Rather than just simply state that we should not abuse the world around us; Stein takes the form of an artist and truly illustrates this principle through her poetry. I think the way to understand Stein was best stated in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas when she wrote, “Miss Stein and he seemed to be full of hidden meanings” (14).
I am not sure that I agree that Stein wanted us to find our own personal meanings to her poems. I think that Stein is trying to entirely transcend the idea that we should find "meaning" in poetry, as is traditionally understood. Instead, I think she is using language unconventionally in order to ask us to not pay attention to the meaning of the words, to not try to look through them in order to make sense of it, but to merely take them for face value and analyze her words as an aesthetic art. I do not view Stein as full of "hidden meanings," but instead as opposing the idea that we should even be looking for such deeper significance.
ReplyDeleteSarit- at first your response offended the child in me, because we were always taught to do just the opposite of what you said. We were meant to look for deeper meaning in literature, always find the hidden nuances within ordinary sentences. But, I think you are right in saying that this is precisely what makes Stein so unique- her rejection of that school of thought and her playful and experimental usage of words and language in general.
ReplyDeleteStill, like Paige said, it can be gratifying to assign one's own meanings to her writing, especially when her poetry can be so difficult to grasp in the way she may have intended.
What really makes Stein so difficult is that we are forced to approach her writing in a nonconventional way. As Emma said, the child in her was offended, because we've all been taught to read a poem and then peel back the layers to reach its meaning. So while its hard to unlearn what we've been taught, I agree with Sarit that we need to read Stein and appreciate her overall rhythm, sound, and aesthetic writing as art.
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