In our class on Monday, February 28, the students expressed their frustration with Gertrude Stein’s writing style. Among the comments aired in class were “She’s hard to make sense of”, “You have to kind of go around her to understand her”, and “She’s a non-linear writer”. Indeed, everything about Gertrude Stein was different from the authors we had previously read. For example, since her writing in “Four Saints in Three Acts” didn’t follow a traditional plotline, the way we construed her words couldn’t follow the usual analytical conventions. Furthermore, her diction in this short story lends itself to seemingly endless repetition, repeating some words for entire section, with no indication for why such word is emphasized. After many attempts to make sense of these elements in her text, only one question remained: Why?
The first step we must take to resolving the conundrum presented by Stein’s writing is to let go of the traditional demands set by literary analysis, in which the typical scholar asks how the placement of a given set of words is significant to the rest of the passage, or why it’s important that a certain phrase is repeated throughout the body of the work. By doing so, we step back from trying to apply traditional analytical lenses to a very non-traditional body of writing, and start observing the text itself rather than pick it apart.
Observing the text, the second step, entails reading with an eye to the effect of the words on the paper itself, and how it sounds when you read it. As a reader of Gertrude Stein, it’s far more important for you to notice the effect created by combination of the words “All of them might be with them all of them at that time” (Stein 606), rather than wondering why Stein chose to repeat the words “all” and “them” so many times. Since these words seem to be used at random, it suggests that Stein intended for her writing to be resistant to interpretation, defying conventional methods of literary interpretation.
In addition, the random arrangement of the words in “Four Saints in Three Acts” echoes the random surge of words that accompany the stream of human thought. and expresses the ebb and flow of what goes on when a person is trying to reinvent the conventional ways of interpreting their world. This structural style indicates that perfection arises out of self-expression, because it gives each person the ability to build their own idea of the world based on how they process it with all of their senses. In addition, it suggests that perfection of the human mind arises out of the expression of human thought.
For example, in Act III, Scene VIII, Stein expresses her worldview by stating, “Ordinary pigeons and trees. If a generation all the same between forty and fifty as as. As they were and met. Was it tenderness and seem... Ordinary pigeons and trees. This is a setting which is as soon which is as soon which is as soon ordinary setting which is as soon which is as soon and noon” (Stein 608). When interpreted as the flow of a given person’s thought process, this passage becomes the complete cycle of perception. Moving from mundane thoughts about pigeons to enlightened musings about the “generation… between forty and fifty”, Stein’s words prove to be an expression of the human mind’s ability to use its tendency toward random thought as a method for making sense out of an equally random world.
While I appreciate the methods you present on how to go about reading Stein, I disagree with your excessive use of the word random.
ReplyDeleteStein stresses that her words are not placed at random. You say, "these words seem to be used at random.." but I strongly disagree because Stein herself makes clear that each word, especially each repetition was deeply considered and placed there intentionally. Perhaps, Stein's writing mirrors a stream of consciousness, but I believe she certainly did not write her works by putting down whatever came to her head, recording her own stream of random thoughts.
I'm conflicted. One side of me wants to agree with Natalie, that Stein carefully chose each and every word, and that the seemingly random choice of words actually makes up a carefully structured literary work. On the other hand, if Stein wanted to successfully evoke a stream-of-consciousness mindset, then this would require a genuine randomness that mimics the human mind. But can a cacophony of random words be considered literature? Where do we draw the line for the modernists?
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ReplyDeleteI would contend that there is a difference between "unexpected" or "illogical" and "random." Random would be if you cut up all of the words on the page so that there was only one word per slip of paper, threw the slips of paper in a hat, and picked them out one by one. Personally, I don't feel that Stein's words are random in that sense. It is worth noting however that certain French dadaist writers did just that with words--cut them up into pieces, picked them out of a hat at random, and offered them up that way as poetry. While the experiment was shocking at the time, very few people read such truly random experiments, whereas all of Stein's writing is still in print.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Natalie. I think "random" is too strong a word. Perhaps the writing is scattered, or a pastiche of words.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Shalvi's point, I think Hannah was onto something about the words. It's not that the words contain meaning to make them meaningful, but that the sounds the words make when read aloud evoke the feelings of stream of consciousness, mimicking the human mind.
I also have to agree with Natalie, that 'random' may not be the best word to describe Stein's writing. Still I found your points to be very helpful, Hannah.
ReplyDeleteThe choice of the word “random” as descriptive of Stein’s writing appears to be a major bone of contention for everyone. Perhaps it is everyone's frustration in trying to pointedly describe some difficult pieces of literature that are very different from that which we are used to reading. In general literature and especially in the Bible studies which we have all encountered in our yeshiva education, we have been trained to view each word as necessary and full of meaning, from its context to its conjugation to its prefixes, suffixes, and even the size of the print (e.g. this week’s Torah portion of Vayikra with its small letter alef) We have also been schooled in the belief that not even one word of the Torah is written or repeated unnecessarily. I think we need to abandon the traditional approaches and seek other means of appreciation if we are to read Stein, as we have discovered through our own readings, each others’ blogs, and Professor Miller’s lectures.
ReplyDeleteOne has to remember that Stein was writing "Four Saints In Three Acts" as the libretto to an opera with music to be composed by Virgil Thomson. In fact, the subtitle of the work is "An opera to be sung". In the 1920's, there was considerable interest in cubism and futurism, as well as dadaism, which actually glorified noise and nonsense. All of these elements were well in play. First of all, as a literary cubist, Stein chose to fill her "blank canvas" with words. After all, words are the stock in trade of a writer. But in this "literary cubism", she composed with sounds as would a musician. She was concerned with sounds and euphony first, meaning second. It wasn't that she had no concern for meaning, because there are some profound observations in Four Saints, as when St. Teresa asks "Can women have wishes?". But her primary concern was how the words sounded when spoken or sung: "in place of in place of might make milk sung sung, place to place, face to face, place in place of face to face. Milk sung." But another aspect of Four Saints is the considerable amount of humor and joking (Inside or otherwise) embedded in the text. There are hundreds of saints rather than four, and the play has four acts rather than three. In fact, the narrators called the "Commere" and "Compere" have a rather heated argument about whether there will be a fourth act or not. In other places it is obvious that Stein wanted the stage instructions to be sung as well. For example, she states: "Scene One. And seen one. Very likely." Another place states, "He asked for a distant magpie as if that made a difference." Stein imagines that when the saints get to heaven, there is information for them attached to the trees: "The envelopes are on all the fruit of the fruit trees." And some of the questions in the text involve a certain degree of humor as well: "How many saints can remember a house that was built before they can remember?" And "Supposing she had said that he had chosen all the miseries that he had observed in fifty of his years, what had that to do with hats?" Altogether, Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts must be investigated in the light of cubism and futurism, and the vein of humor that underpins it must be recognized for what it is. And furthermore, in it we can see a vague parallel between the saints and modern artists, such as Stein and her friend Alice B. Toklas, or Picasso, or James Joyce, or Virgil Thomson. Whatever it is, it is not simply "random." As Stein wrote toward the end of it, evoking the Holy Communion, "When this you see, remember Me. "
ReplyDeletejdogg, this was a six year old post from a former student of mine in an old class. Thread is dead, and the class is long over. I'll close comments so others do not get confused. I actually thought they were closed already.
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