Gertrude Stein was born on February 3, 1874 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania to German Jewish immigrant parents. Her childhood was filled with a colorful geography, moving first at the age of one to Vienna then to Passy, France. Her first languages were German and French. Stein then moved with her family to California at the age of six. Stein studied at Radcliffe and John Hopkins University before leaving America for France in 1903 (Stein 176). At the age of 27, Stein ran the salon Rue de Fleurus and was regularly visited by artists and writers such as Picasso, Henri Mattise, Ernest Hemingway, William Carlos Williams, H.D., and Mina Loy. In 1907, Stein began a lifelong romantic relationship with Alice B. Toklas. They both lived through, and survived, World War II (Stein 178).
Stein’s writing style is closely tied in to the artistic movements of her time, including Cubism and Postimpressionism (Perloff 33). Her foundation in these roots started early with studies in psychology with William James at Radcliffe college-- their experiments with automatic writing would reveal the functions of the unconscious mind to her. This would then lead her to the idea that “consciousness is a stream, rather than a succession of formations, and that underneath chronological memory is an intuitive apprehension of existence” (Stein 177). With these findings, Stein concluded that sequence and causation were not methods of creativity, but methods of imprisoning the mind. She began to look at the construction of poetry, examining words, sounds, rhymes, rhythms and syntax (Perloff 34). Like with the artform of Cubism, she “conceded that words had to make some sense” but loosened them in order to understand them in an individual and complex way, creating a poetry that is deliberately open ended.
Stein became deeply concerned with the function and meaning of individual words .In her poem Sacred Emily, the line “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” (314) critically reflects her artistic decisions which place emphasis on the meaning of the words. This is done through her word choice as well as the use of phonetic and rhythmic repetition. When asked about the meaning of this phrase during her United States lecture tour, she stated “it was the first time a rose was red in literature for a century” and that she “was also the first person ever to have ‘completely caressed and addressed a noun” (Mossberg 199). Though that may sound like bold or unfounded claim, Stein addresses that the rose of older poetry is the same worn out image of the symbolic, normative representation of the rose. It is through this rose that Stein builds an identity; “each linking verb constitutes a possible moment of freedom in which this rose can be or become something else, something besides, can be understood in terms other than herself” (Mossberg 200).
Stein believed that through overuse and over-familiarity of the words, the name lost its identity. She tries to recover this in her poetry through breaking words into one another, sometimes breaking them down into component parts or by making them echo, double back, fracture or repeat into one another (Mossberg 201). One must also consider Stein’s attempt to make poetry unique through identity, and how her choice of words and their meaning reflect upon her own identity. Stein, a woman writing at the turn of the century, stresses this “need for self-legitimation and self-authority” in her poetry through an exploration for the meaning of the words (Jarraway 23). There was a questioning about the “need” to conform, a confrontation to the fixed principles of her time. This search for identity and for meaning is seen in her poetry through the use of repetition. In Sacred Emily, certain words are repeated up to seven times in sequence or are repeated within multiple sentences. Note this example:
Put something down.
Put something down some say.
Put something down some day in.
Put something down some day in mu.
In my hand.
In my hand right.
In my hand writing.
Put something down someday in my hand writing. (191)
Stein attempts to re-establish the unique weight and value of words. She emphasizes that their value and importance is equal, as in any work of art, not one more word matter more than another. Each one adds to the piece and should be explored thoroughly if one wishes to understand language, poetry and its relationship to others and art itself.
Stein was focused on trying to write portraits of the words by using them actively in poetry. She states; “I wrote portraits knowing that each one is themselves inside them and something about them perhaps everything about them will tell someone all about them that thing.... I was making a continuous succession of the statement of what that [word] was until I had not many things but one thing” (Perloff 33). Stein was perplexed and surprised by the possibilities that these new combinations provided for her. She described this new relationship to words as “the relation of man to character that you did not expect” (Stein 988). With an emphasis placed on the singling out of words to derive their true, Stein was able to create a discussion about words, their individual value and their significance in language that we are still having today.
Stein’s writing style is closely tied in to the artistic movements of her time, including Cubism and Postimpressionism (Perloff 33). Her foundation in these roots started early with studies in psychology with William James at Radcliffe college-- their experiments with automatic writing would reveal the functions of the unconscious mind to her. This would then lead her to the idea that “consciousness is a stream, rather than a succession of formations, and that underneath chronological memory is an intuitive apprehension of existence” (Stein 177). With these findings, Stein concluded that sequence and causation were not methods of creativity, but methods of imprisoning the mind. She began to look at the construction of poetry, examining words, sounds, rhymes, rhythms and syntax (Perloff 34). Like with the artform of Cubism, she “conceded that words had to make some sense” but loosened them in order to understand them in an individual and complex way, creating a poetry that is deliberately open ended.
Stein became deeply concerned with the function and meaning of individual words .In her poem Sacred Emily, the line “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” (314) critically reflects her artistic decisions which place emphasis on the meaning of the words. This is done through her word choice as well as the use of phonetic and rhythmic repetition. When asked about the meaning of this phrase during her United States lecture tour, she stated “it was the first time a rose was red in literature for a century” and that she “was also the first person ever to have ‘completely caressed and addressed a noun” (Mossberg 199). Though that may sound like bold or unfounded claim, Stein addresses that the rose of older poetry is the same worn out image of the symbolic, normative representation of the rose. It is through this rose that Stein builds an identity; “each linking verb constitutes a possible moment of freedom in which this rose can be or become something else, something besides, can be understood in terms other than herself” (Mossberg 200).
Stein believed that through overuse and over-familiarity of the words, the name lost its identity. She tries to recover this in her poetry through breaking words into one another, sometimes breaking them down into component parts or by making them echo, double back, fracture or repeat into one another (Mossberg 201). One must also consider Stein’s attempt to make poetry unique through identity, and how her choice of words and their meaning reflect upon her own identity. Stein, a woman writing at the turn of the century, stresses this “need for self-legitimation and self-authority” in her poetry through an exploration for the meaning of the words (Jarraway 23). There was a questioning about the “need” to conform, a confrontation to the fixed principles of her time. This search for identity and for meaning is seen in her poetry through the use of repetition. In Sacred Emily, certain words are repeated up to seven times in sequence or are repeated within multiple sentences. Note this example:
Put something down.
Put something down some say.
Put something down some day in.
Put something down some day in mu.
In my hand.
In my hand right.
In my hand writing.
Put something down someday in my hand writing. (191)
Stein attempts to re-establish the unique weight and value of words. She emphasizes that their value and importance is equal, as in any work of art, not one more word matter more than another. Each one adds to the piece and should be explored thoroughly if one wishes to understand language, poetry and its relationship to others and art itself.
Stein was focused on trying to write portraits of the words by using them actively in poetry. She states; “I wrote portraits knowing that each one is themselves inside them and something about them perhaps everything about them will tell someone all about them that thing.... I was making a continuous succession of the statement of what that [word] was until I had not many things but one thing” (Perloff 33). Stein was perplexed and surprised by the possibilities that these new combinations provided for her. She described this new relationship to words as “the relation of man to character that you did not expect” (Stein 988). With an emphasis placed on the singling out of words to derive their true, Stein was able to create a discussion about words, their individual value and their significance in language that we are still having today.