A Rose Is a Pose: Steinian Modernism and Mass Culture

Abstract

Critics and commentators have held hugely divergent views on quality and significance of Gertrude Stein's literary works. They have agreed, however, on one point: that with notable exception of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), Stein's writings attracted very few readers in her lifetime. In this book which became a bestseller, Stein departs drastically from her characteristic style that had been dubbed Steinese by her reviewers. Instead, she invents a new voice and writes from point of view of Toklas in a style that could be read with little effort and did not require patience that one must bring to reading The Making ofAmericans (1925), Tender Buttons (1914), and her other more difficult works. Although book written in Toklas's voice was Stein's only work that circulated widely, Stein's characteristically difficult style was more widely known to American public than we had previously imagined. For example, in a 1914 article in The Evening Sun, a journalist reports on an international polo game and adopts the phraseology of Gertrude Stein for purpose because it harmonizes so well with our clear understanding of game. The farcical account of rules begins: Polo, a game not a basket but nevertheless, molasses running up Woolworth but Wu Ting Fang, yes, no, no, yes, certainly, but by hakes and that which is a turnip is not a peanut notwithstanding.' Stein had hired several clipping services to comb newspapers for articles that mentioned her name, and hundreds of clippings that contain imitations of her writing style are held in Yale University's collection of Stein's archival materials.2 When outbreak of World War II was imminent, Thornton Wilder convinced Stein to send