Introduction


Gertrude Stein

At the forefront of literary modernism in the early twentieth century was the inimitable Gertrude Stein. Although she was an American, ideological and artistic differences with her home country compelled the author to move to France. Further solidifying Stein as an iconoclast was her nearly lifelong relationship with her companion and secretary, Alice B. Toklas. Stylistically, Stein wrote in a stream-of-consciousness manner, a method that attempts to present thoughts as they occur in an uncensored fashion. Poet Judy Grahn has identified six principles at play in one combination or another in Stein’s work: commonality, essence, the “continuous present,” value, play, and transformation. Stein’s most famous and successful work is The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, in which Stein tried to exactly represent the thoughts and feelings of her companion.

Essential Facts

  1. Many famous authors of the twentieth century revered Stein as one of the most original and thought-provoking writers in history. Among her admirers and friends were Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, and Thornton Wilder.
  2. What is so unique about Stein’s stream-of-consciousness writing style? Here is an example from her book The Making of Americans: “Americans are very friendly and very suspicious, that is what Americans are and that is what always upsets the foreigner, who deals with them, they are so friendly how can they be so suspicious they are so suspicious how can they be so friendly but they just are.”
  3. During World War I, Stein and Toklas learned how to drive and risked their own lives delivering medical supplies to French hospitals.
  4. In 1934, Stein raised a ruckus when some misinterpreted her sarcastic comments in the New York Times about Hitler: “I say that Hitler ought to have the (Nobel) peace prize, because he is removing all the elements of contest and of struggle from Germany....By suppressing Jews...he was ending struggle in Germany.”
  5. Stein often had a wry sense of humor. For example, she once said, “I do want to get rich, but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.”