Gertrude Stein Summary

Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946) American playwright, autobiographer, poet, novelist, and essayist. Gertrude Stein: Introduction Gertrude Stein: Principal Works Gertrude Stein: Primary Sources Gertrude St... Read more

Biography EssayJust as the postimpressionists and cubists made us see paint and then made us see painting, Gertrude Stein made us see words and then made us see writing. Immensely various and widerang... Read more

"It was not what France gave you but what it did not take away from you that was important," Gertrude Stein once remarked by way of explaining her long-term residence in Paris. She had found in the Fr... Read more

Gertrude Stein, who lived and wrote as though she knew she would be legendary, is more than that now: she is an icon. The image of Stein, sitting under the Picasso portrait of her in the living room a... Read more

In the following essay, Goebel probes the interwined crises of personal identity and mortality in Gertrude Stein's fiction. While still quite young, Gertrude Stein overheard that her parents ha... Read more

In the following review, Savran assesses a 1992 New York City production of Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights in terms of director Robert Wilson's contemporary associations with the play'... Read more

In the following essay, Mellow examines the writing style and structures of the plays in Operas and Plays. The theater of Gertrude Stein is as radical today as it was seventy or more years ago when, i... Read more

In the following essay, Pladott assesses Stein's contribution to American drama in terms of her “exile” as an expatriate American woman, a Jew, and a lesbian. How does one live an... Read more

In the following essay, Marranca provides an overview of Stein's life and career. A few years ago, in the newly redesigned Bryant Park, adjacent to the New York Public Library in mid-town Manha... Read more

In the following essay, Giesenkirchen describes the multilingual dimension of Stein's style in Accents in Alsace, contrasting her famous preference for the English language with her sensitivity... Read more

In the following essay, Ruddick determines “Melanctha” to be Stein's conscious break with nineteenth-century literary standards. Gertrude Stein thought of herself as having spent ... Read more

In the following essay, Hilfer argues that “Melanctha” is a radical empiricist work in the vein of the philosophy of William James, in which “mood is a phenomenological reality.&#... Read more

In the following excerpt from his introduction to Stanzas in Meditation and Other Poems, Sutherland discusses the evolution of Stein's poetics. The works in [Stanzas in Meditation and Other Poe... Read more

In the following excerpt, Ziarek discusses "Patriarchal Poetry" as an avant-garde work of rebellion against traditional poetic styles. Apart from explicit references to pleasure and liki... Read more

In the following excerpt, Knight applies theories of artistic perception to Stein's poetic style in Tender Buttons, emphasizing Stein's desire to create subjective impressions of the wor... Read more

In the following review of Stanzas in Meditation and Other Poems, Ashbery describes the difficult, ambitious nature of Stein's experiments with language. [Stanzas in Meditation] will probably p... Read more

In the following essay, Hadas provides a biographical interpretation of Tender Buttons which includes explanations of Stein's feelings for her brother, Leo Stein, their mutual interest in the p... Read more

In the following essay, Mizejewski contrasts Stein's perceptions of self in Tender Buttons with examples of how feminist writers of her era treated the theme of female self-perception. Since Ge... Read more

In the following essay, Schultz discusses Stein's ruminations on her writing career in "Stanzas in Meditation" and her autobiographical prose works. I often think how celebrated ... Read more