I cannot decide if Gertrude Stein's unconventional writing is real, aesthetically pleasing and novel art. Stein’s writing is like nothing I have encountered before. It is impressive as she essentially is reinventing language and playing with grammatical rules. However, I feel this is even too far for the Modernist era. The reader is imprisoned by an unclear collage of words and trapped in the nothingness behind her writing; Stein is isolating her readers. Modernists often compromise the aesthetic component of their art in order to shock their audience.
Nevertheless, whether I find her writing to be simply annoying or real innovative prose (if we can even call it that?), Stein's experimental writing follows Ezra Pound’s motto “make it new” wholly. Stein embodies the Modernist era as her writing is composed of distorted word meanings, illogical repetition, puns and a musical flow that creates utter chaos in her work. This results in a repetitive child-like type of prose without a story and rather utilizes general and simple words.
Stein created her own language, as the content of her “portraits” is full of repetitive rambling and meshed words with non-literal meanings. For this reason, the aesthetic value of Stein's work must be debated. While some find her writing to be pure nonsense and a random assortment of words, others find the newness of language as beautiful and melodic creativity. I do not know where I stand on this. I can appreciate the mere novelty of her craft but often leave each piece not knowing what I have read. It is frustrating; is she mocking her reader? What am I supposed to get out of these pieces?
Since the text is non-referential, meaning the words only refer to themselves, not their semantic meanings, we may never know what Stein’s intent was behind her writing. She essentially plays with her readers as she disposes of all signifiers in language, leaving the words to be sounds that can mean virtually anything. The following excerpt is from the double portrait “Miss Furr and Miss Skeene:”
They were in a way both gay there where there were many cultivating something. They were both regular in being gay there. Helen Furr was gay there, she was gayer and gayer there and really she was just gay there, she was gayer and gayer there, that is to say she found ways of being gay there that she was using in being gay there.
When reading this aloud, these sentences sound like a rhyming, bouncy, and childish nursery rhyme. The repetition and basic words contribute to the rhythmic flow. This is an example of a piece that I had less difficulty with. This portrait, from what I have deduced, tells the story of two happily gay women in love. It is impressive that one can come to a conclusion of what this portrait is expressing of the women’s personalities without quantitative information. However, I only get a general idea of the piece; I could not explain details or even give translations of the individual sentences.
Stein’s writing can be utter crazinesss at times; this excerpt is from her novel “Tender Buttons,” and is under the heading: SHOES.
"To be a wall with a damper a stream of pounding way and nearly enough choice makes a steady midnight. It is pus.
A shallow hole rose on red, a shallow hole in and in this makes ale less. It shows shine."
While the heading is "SHOES," the actual text does not seem to have much to do with shoes. I find when I try to make sense of this excerpt and relate it to the heading, I leave more confused. The purpose of this piece is not to make literal sense and does not tell a story. Stein’s portraits can indeed characterize a person using the same style, but her novel “Tender Buttons” is full of lists and descriptions that I cannot decode. The above text does indeed hold an aesthetic aspect; this excerpt also sounds like a nursery rhyme as it oozes musicality and has a sort of rhythmic flow.
Stein's writing is often compared to cubism, as it is also difficult to understand the analogies of shapes, words, lines, and so on in Cubist art. In today’s word, Cubism as an aesthetic form of art is not debated. However, Gertrude Stein’s prose is. Moreover, if this comparison is made, Stein’s art must have the potential to be aesthetically pleasing. We do not need to understand what the art is to consider it aesthetically pleasing art. It is unlikely that all understand the intertwining shapes, images, and colors in Pablo Picasso’s work. Nonetheless, it is famed as beautiful art. Stein must be looked at similarly; Stein’s art is pretty to look at, too, even if one is confused in what it is. Its mere presence of innovation demands aesthetic value.
Stein is performing with words as they muddy and mesh together to make sounds. By the end of reading one of these pieces, there most likely will not be clarity or closure. The only conclusion I can come to is that this is not a typical piece of literature where themes, conventional use of grammar, advanced vocabulary, and even specific nouns exist. Stein is protesting the conventional; she is rewiring what typical communication is by using words differently than ever before.
As I am finishing this blog entry, I find that I have convinced myself that Gertrude Stein’s writing is indeed aesthetically pleasing art. It is excitingly strange and original. It simply sounds fun when read aloud. Her text is deceivingly simple; or is it? The message behind her writing could be incredibly intricate but I do not know and I am OK with that. Experts and professors may theorize what a certain portrait or list really means but it is honestly impossible to ever know Stein's motives behind this eccentric and erratic writing. When words are stripped of their meanings, then the text can mean anything. This type of writing should be taken for what it is: a hodgepodge of words that sound nice together.
My conclusion is this: the aesthetic value is found in one getting lost in the floating repetitive sounds and awkward word pairings, without picking at any apparent themes. Finding thorough and cohesive meaning in writing was obviously too much of a cliché for Gertrude Stein.
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