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Please <br /><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://forms.gle/aiW5jqp66mFaHDKU6">join in</a> to develop this article!</center> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="float:right; clear:right; margin:0 0 0.5em 0.3em; padding:0.5em 0 0.8em 1.4em;"><div id="toc" class="toc" role="navigation" aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading"><input type="checkbox" role="button" id="toctogglecheckbox" class="toctogglecheckbox" style="display:none" /><div class="toctitle" lang="en" dir="ltr"><h2 id="mw-toc-heading">Contents</h2><span class="toctogglespan"><label class="toctogglelabel" for="toctogglecheckbox"></label></span></div> <ul> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="#Most_famous_work"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Most famous work</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="#A_decidedly_not_famous_work"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">A decidedly not famous work</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="#Frequently_quoted"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">Frequently quoted</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <div class="thumb tleft"><div class="thumbinner" style="width:452px;"><a href="/wiki/File:Gertrude_stein-1.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="/wiki/images/thumb/c/c7/Gertrude_stein-1.jpg/450px-Gertrude_stein-1.jpg" decoding="async" width="450" height="253" class="thumbimage" srcset="/wiki/images/thumb/c/c7/Gertrude_stein-1.jpg/675px-Gertrude_stein-1.jpg 1.5x, /wiki/images/c/c7/Gertrude_stein-1.jpg 2x" data-file-width="850" data-file-height="478" /></a> <div class="thumbcaption"><div class="magnify"><a href="/wiki/File:Gertrude_stein-1.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge"></a></div>Part of <a href="/wiki/Pablo_Picasso" title="Pablo Picasso">Pable Picasso</a>'s famous 1905-06 portrait of Gertrude Stein. Picasso was one of Stein's friends during her Paris years.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup></div></div></div> <div class="thumb tright"><div class="thumbinner" style="width:452px;"><a href="/wiki/File:Terra_cotta_stein.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="/wiki/images/thumb/5/56/Terra_cotta_stein.jpg/450px-Terra_cotta_stein.jpg" decoding="async" width="450" height="675" class="thumbimage" srcset="/wiki/images/thumb/5/56/Terra_cotta_stein.jpg/675px-Terra_cotta_stein.jpg 1.5x, /wiki/images/5/56/Terra_cotta_stein.jpg 2x" data-file-width="683" data-file-height="1024" /></a> <div class="thumbcaption"><div class="magnify"><a href="/wiki/File:Terra_cotta_stein.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge"></a></div><a href="/wiki/Jo_Davidson_(sculptor)" title="Jo Davidson (sculptor)">Jo Davidson (sculptor)</a>'s life-size terra cotta sculpture of Gertrude Stein created in Paris in 1923, now in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. A bronze cast of this sculture was made in 1991 for Bryant Park, Manhattan, New York City. "There was an eternal quality about her," sculptor Jo Davidson (a Stein friend from her Paris years) wrote. "She somehow symbolized wisdom." He depicted her here as "a sort of modern Buddha."</div></div></div> <p><b>Gertrude Stein</b> (1874 - 1946) was an American author, and self-proclaimed genius, who lived in <a href="/wiki/France" title="France">France</a> for most of her adult life. For decades after her death, Stein was best remembered for her associations with, and promotions of, several famous writers and artists, as well as for having lived an openly lesbian lifestyle. As of 2021, there exists a renewed and widespread interest in her writings, in which she frequently created deliberate linguistic conundrums, making her work especially challenging to read. Her writings have also become popular as a source of out-of-context quotes in the internet, with the specific work rarely cited. </p><p>Many English literature majors in college were never required to read a single work by Stein, who arguably may be the most misquoted and least read writer of the English language. </p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Most_famous_work">Most famous work</span></h2> <p>Stein's most famous work was a best seller published in 1933, <i>The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas</i>, and it uses relatively little of the kind of confounding language that has caused Gertrude Stein to be remembered nearly a century later. </p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="A_decidedly_not_famous_work">A decidedly not famous work</span></h2> <p>One of Stein's least famous books was published posthumously in 1947 and was entitled <i>Four in America</i><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup>. As of 2020, <i>Four in America</i> is out of print, has never been digitized, and is likely to be found in only two or three libraries in the United States<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3">[3]</a></sup>. Even used copies via the internet are difficult to come by. The book consisted of four sections, purporting to be about “Wilbur Wright”, "Grant", “Henry James” and “George Washington”. </p><p><i>Four in America</i> is noteworthy because a single sentence of it has been widely misquoted and misinterpreted multiple times on the internet, all without any reference to its actual source. Internet quotes claim that Stein said she "admired Ulysses S. Grant". Others claim that Stein said she could not “think of Grant without weeping”. The actual sentence Stein wrote is to be found in the quarter of <i>Four in America</i> allegedly about Grant, on its last page, atop the following abstruse paragraph: </p> <table align="center" cellpadding="10" style="background-color:#FFFFCC; width:40%; border: 1px solid #aaa; margin:20px; font-size: 95%;"> <tbody><tr> <td> <p><b>I cannot think of Ulysses Simpson Grant without tears.</b> He was so what shall it be not by any night not by any day not by any light not by any way, but Ulysses Simpson Grant, which one is, that one is, who can come that one can come, for which they come not of for which they come but they can in that case but which they can in that case can place, I place him there. Do you too. Do you two place him there which do you do. I do I place him there. I which I place him there, not only for me to be me, I am an American which if which I can be only I know, I know all about sitting and standing but I do not sit and stand in the way not yet nor has been. </p><p>From Four in America, page 81, by Gertrude Stein (1947). </p> </td></tr></tbody></table> <p>An attempt to make sense of the above paragraph can be found in <i>Four in America'</i>s 26-page introduction by <a href="/wiki/Thornton_Wilder" title="Thornton Wilder">Thornton Wilder</a> (whom Stein counted as a friend, and who appreciated her writing). He provides an explanation for Stein’s mangled, rebellious and challenging use of language. Per Wilder, Stein believed that we are now living in “end times” where language has become superficial in effect, and normal use of language does not reach the real person inside each of us. Thus (surmises Wilder), Stein tried a variety of unorthodox mechanisms to cut through our mental fog, to make us sit up and think differently, to jar us out of complacency, to challenge what we really know. Possibly, to want to read this book, wrote Wilder, requires a kind spiritual readiness. </p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Frequently_quoted">Frequently quoted</span></h2> <p>Scattered throughout Stein's writings are some striking phrases that have become very popular. Although many are from works filled with difficult and marginally comprehensible language, people repeat these phrases (or mangled versions of them) and often provide a convenient explanation of what Stein meant--but seldom does anyone cite the work from which the phrase came, and so these attributions of specific meanings tend to be questionable. </p> <table align="center" cellpadding="10" style="background-color:#FFFFCC; width:40%; border: 1px solid #aaa; margin:20px; font-size: 95%;"> <tbody><tr> <td> <p><b>A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.</b> </p><p>From <i>Wars I Have Seen</i>, page 39, by Gertrude Stein (1945). </p> </td></tr></tbody></table> <table align="center" cellpadding="10" style="background-color:#FFFFCC; width:40%; border: 1px solid #aaa; margin:20px; font-size: 95%;"> <tbody><tr> <td> <p><b>Let me listen to me and not to them.</b> </p><p>From <i>Stanzas in Meditation</i> Stanza VII, by Gertrude Stein (1932)<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4">[4]</a></sup> </p> </td></tr></tbody></table> <p>The following is frequently misquoted as <i><b>A</b> rose is a rose is a rose</i>. </p> <table align="center" cellpadding="10" style="background-color:#FFFFCC; width:40%; border: 1px solid #aaa; margin:20px; font-size: 95%;"> <tbody><tr> <td> <p><b>Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.</b><sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5">[5]</a></sup> </p><p>From the poem "Sacred Emily", by Gertrude Stein (first appearance 1913)<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-6">[6]</a></sup> </p> </td></tr></tbody></table> <p>The last five words of this sentence, written in regards to Stein's childhood home in Oakland, CA, have caught the public imagination as a standalone phrase since the 1960's. The phrase now tends to mean that something has no important essence. </p> <table align="center" cellpadding="10" style="background-color:#FFFFCC; width:40%; border: 1px solid #aaa; margin:20px; font-size: 95%;"> <tbody><tr> <td> <p>...Not of course the house, the house the big house and the big garden and the eucalyptus trees and the rose hedge naturally were not there any longer existing, what was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or any- thing if I like but not there, <b>there is no there there</b>. </p><p>From <i>Everybody’s Autobiography</i>, p 298, by Gertrude Stein (1937).<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-7">[7]</a></sup> </p> </td></tr></tbody></table> <p>The following oft-quoted phrase appears during a description of a frought day in the early 1930's when two cars would not start, the telephone was broken, there was no food, visitors arrived, their two house servants resigned, and no one was getting anything they wanted at that time: </p> <table align="center" cellpadding="10" style="background-color:#FFFFCC; width:40%; border: 1px solid #aaa; margin:20px; font-size: 95%;"> <tbody><tr> <td> <p>The thing about it all that is puzzling is that really nothing is frightening. Anything scares me, anything scares any one but really after all <b>considering how dangerous everything is nothing is really very frightening</b>. </p><p>From <i>Everybody's Autobiography</i>, Ch. II, page 75, by Gertrude Stein (1937). </p> </td></tr></tbody></table> <p>== Notes == </p> <div class="mw-references-wrap"><ol class="references"> <li id="cite_note-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-1">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text">Read more about <i><span class="newtab"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://art473modernarti.com/2020/09/22/portrait-of-gertrude-stein-by-pablo-picasso/comment-page-1/">Portrait of Gertrude Stein…by Pablo Picasso</a></span></i>, blog post by an art history professor from September 22, 2020, last access 2/6/2021</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-2">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><i>Four in America</i> was published in 1947 by Yale University Press. The book includes a 26-page introduction by playwright <a href="/wiki/Thornton_Wilder" title="Thornton Wilder">Thornton Wilder</a>.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-3">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text">A copy of <i>Four in America</i> exists in the <span class="newtab"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.freelibrary.org/">Philadelphia Free Library</a></span>, and also in the <span class="newtab"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://library.princeton.edu/">Princeton University Library</a></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-4">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"> More about "Let me listen to me..." is at the Google Books page for <i><span class="newtab"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Stanzas_in_Meditation.html?id=aFhK6v40dvQC&source=kp_book_description">Stanzas in Meditation: The Corrected Edition</a></span></i> by Gertrude Stein, Yale University Press, Jan 17, 2012; last access 2/5/2021</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-5"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-5">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text">From <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/33403/pg33403.txt">Project Gutenberg: <i>Geography and Plays</i> by Gertrude Stein</a>, last access 2/6/2021</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-6"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-6">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text">More about "Rose is a rose is a rose" is in the University of Pennsylvania's <span class="newtab"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://writing.upenn.edu/library/Stein-Gertrude_Rose-is-a-rose.html">Electronic Poetry Center</a></span>, last access 2-5-2021</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-7"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-7">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text">See more details in <span class="newtab"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-gertrude-steins-no-there-there-is-everywhere-1517589198"><i>Why Gertrude Stein’s ‘No There There’ Is Everywhere</i></a></span>, <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, Feb. 2, 2018, last access 2/6/2021</span> </li> </ol></div>  </div> <div class="printfooter" data-nosnippet="">Retrieved from "<a dir="ltr" href="https://citizendium.org/wiki/index.php?title=Gertrude_Stein&oldid=973337">https://citizendium.org/wiki/index.php?title=Gertrude_Stein&oldid=973337</a>"</div></div> <div id="catlinks" class="catlinks" data-mw="interface"><div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="/wiki/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Categories</a>: <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Category:CZ_Live" title="Category:CZ Live">CZ Live</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Literature_Workgroup" title="Category:Literature Workgroup">Literature Workgroup</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:History_Workgroup" title="Category:History Workgroup">History Workgroup</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Linguistics_Workgroup" title="Category:Linguistics Workgroup">Linguistics Workgroup</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Articles_written_in_American_English" title="Category:Articles written in American English">Articles written in American English</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:All_Content" title="Category:All Content">All Content</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Literature_Content" title="Category:Literature Content">Literature Content</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:History_Content" title="Category:History Content">History Content</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Linguistics_Content" title="Category:Linguistics Content">Linguistics Content</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:History_tag" title="Category:History tag">History tag</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Bylines" title="Category:Bylines">Bylines</a></li></ul></div><div id="mw-hidden-catlinks" class="mw-hidden-catlinks mw-hidden-cats-hidden">Hidden categories: <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Literature_tag" title="Category:Literature tag">Literature tag</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Linguistics_tag" title="Category:Linguistics tag">Linguistics tag</a></li><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Suggestion_Bot_Tag" title="Category:Suggestion Bot Tag">Suggestion Bot Tag</a></li></ul></div></div> </div> </div> <div id="mw-navigation"> <h2>Navigation menu</h2> <div id="mw-head"> <nav id="p-personal" class="vector-menu mw-portlet mw-portlet-personal vector-user-menu-legacy" aria-labelledby="p-personal-label" role="navigation" > <h3 id="p-personal-label" class="vector-menu-heading " > <span class="vector-menu-heading-label">Personal tools</span> </h3> <div class="vector-menu-content"> <ul class="vector-menu-content-list"><li id="pt-login" class="mw-list-item"><a href="/wiki/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&returnto=Gertrude+Stein" title="To edit pages, [[Special:RequestAccount|get a contributor account]]. 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