Gertrude Stein by Frederick J. Hoffman

Gertrude Stein

Frederick J. Hoffman

AT LEAST three Gertrude Steins have been accounted for in modern criticism, biography, and gossip: the formidably gracious and effective matron of modern American letters, expatriate mistress of ceremonies; the theorist of language and literature and of their fusion in ‘composition as explanation’ of the thing seen; and the artist, author of two or three distinguished books and of a dozen or more provocative and puzzling others. The first of these has been abundantly described, testified to, and in one sense or another exploited. From the time she agreed to separate from brother Leo (1912), to set up her own literary shop in Paris, her prestige as an informal arbiter of special tastes in the arts grew and flourished. She posed for the role, and having succeeded in carrying it off, became convinced of its genuineness and worth. Subsequently the roles of hostess and critic were combined, and in her triumphant tour of America (1934-35) she was known both as an engaging and intriguing personality and as a person who had many penetrating things to say. At times vague, often apparently naive, she was nevertheless appreciated by those who knew her and troubled themselves to read her work as a dedicated spirit, narrowly intent upon expanding and illustrating her original views of language and its literary function. The woman who invited gossip, superficial interest in her eccentricities , laughter and even ridicule, was a part of the ceremony that was her work. That she was received with enthusiasmin the i92o’s by many of the postwar generation of writers is a testimony to the fascination she exercised over young talents looking for new forms 5 FREDERICK J. HOFFMAN and manners. When she settled in Paris (1903), at 27, rue de Fleurus, she was unknown and unpublished. With her brother she began to purchase modern paintings (Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Braque) and to encourage the careers of several artists. Her talent for judging the art may have been debatable, but her skill in making the artist indebted to her was not; and in a few years her salon featured a variety of paintings, vying for the honor of a position on its walls. They were dominated by Picasso’s portrait of her, which looked down upon its subject at her desk, a memorable testimony to the beginnings of twentieth-century experiment in the arts. The response to Miss Stein was not always respectful. The very nature of her insistence upon divergent forms and practices puzzled many and made them shy away from what seemed to them a clever game or a play for notoriety. As a dominating woman, she inspired trust in many at the start, then offended that trust or seemed to exploit it too selfishly. The flowers of friendship often faded. The sponsors of ‘realistic decorum,’ who wanted their literature intelligible and overtly ‘purposeful,’ left her early; only Three Lives (1909) pleased them, and this not all. But even more tolerant contemporaries found her work wearisomely repetitious, formless, and offensively coy. While she seemed in the vanguardof the new literature and wasfor a time (in the 1920’$ especially) honored by its pundits and sponsors, her position as titular head of the avant-garde was often threatened and finally lost altogether. Harsh ridicule of her stubborn dowagership was not uncommon; and however simply honest and decorous her menage aiix arts proved actually to be, the spectacle of the mistress of ceremonies invited suspicion both of her motives and of the clarity of her intentions. Katherine Anne Porter, who on at least one other occasion had found her work formidably impressive, provided the most cleverly devastating of disparagements (in an essay, ‘The Wooden Umbrella ,’ 1947). She described Miss Stein as ‘of the company of 6 Gertrude Stein Amazons which nineteenth-century America produced amongits many prodigies: not-men, not-women, answerable to no function in either sex,whose careers were carried on, and how successfully, in whatever field they chose: they were educators, writers, editors, politicians, artists, world travelers,and internationalhostesses, who lived in public and by the public and played out their self-assumed, self-created roles in such masterly freedom as only a few early medieval queenshad equaled.’ Miss Porter’s suggestion of the female prodigy is not altogether unwise, though she does not appreciate sufficiently the facts of her subject’s persistence and of her dedication to an art and the theory of an art. Gertrude Stein did not begin her career as a writer; when…

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