Dismissed as incomprehensible and commercially unsuccessful during her lifetime, Gertrude Stein’s work caused a seismic shift in literature, leaving much more than a mark on twentieth-century modernism—it reshaped modern poetics. From her perch in interwar Paris, where she lived with life partner and muse Alice Toklas, Stein crafted a literary style that, by its playfulness, repetition (“a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”), and odd rhythms, renders language almost palpable—a thing felt as much as it is thought. Picasso was a frequent companion; Hemingway regularly paid homage. But Stein’s legacy remains tangled. Is she a visionary modernist, a sly ironist, or a trailblazing queer icon? How do we grapple with her unique stylistic innovations, and what do they reveal about the interplay between sound, meaning, and the boundaries of thought, language, and emotion?
In this course, we’ll immerse ourselves in the fascinating world of Gertrude Stein. How did her work influence contemporary poetics? Can repetition, abstraction, and fragmentation defy the conventional rules of storytelling? How can we challenge the very structures of grammar and syntax to break free from tradition? And, as we navigate her remarkable literary achievements, how do we engage with Stein’s controversial political views—from her antisemitic remarks, despite being Jewish, to her admiration for Franco? Primary texts will be divided into biography, experimentation, criticism, and performance texts, including, but not limited to: Three Lives, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, selections from Dear Sammy, Everybody’s Autobiography, Tender Buttons, Geography and Plays, What Are Masterpieces?, Composition as Explanation, and How to Write. We’ll also examine secondary work by Marjorie Perloff, Janet Malcolm, Alice B. Toklas, Jack Halberstam, and Eve Sedgwick, among others.
