Gertrude Stein’s ‘abstract poetry’: poetry as an ‘intellectual thing’

Abstract

Gertrude Stein's poetry is unintelligible in that her use of language disrupts its conceptual and logical aspect and instead explores the material qualities and the dynamic associations of words. It is compared to the cubist abstract painting. Just as the cubist painting presents individual perceptions without synthesizing them into a perspective, it provides individual associations without integrating them into a consistent narrative. Although it retains images of objects, it as a whole rejects mimesis and leads us to pay attention to the features of its medium, i.e., of language and to the text itself instead of an otherwise represented reality. In this light, we may call it ‘abstract poetry.' This characteristic of Stein's poetry stems from her idea of dynamic reality and language. She chooses and combines words according to diverse transitional associations, perceptual as well as conceptual. Her words thus become ambiguous and able to be connected differently at the same time. Those multiple connections are however contradictory and incompatible, so that the entire text cannot consistently refer to a reality. Instead, her poetry acquires the dynamicity and materiality of reality through her manipulation of language. In this way, Stien's abstract poetry becomes itself a reality rather than a reflection of reality. It is a thing with movement and tactility, an embodiment or recreation of reality. However, it is also a complex of different meanings. As a result, it is intellectual as well as tactile and dynamic. It therefore obtains a double status appealing both our intellect and senses: it is an ‘intellectual thing.’