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Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) Interpretations of Gertrude Stein The Complete Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans" read by Gregory Laynor Marian Seldes reads from "The Making of Americans" and "Lectures in Amerca" Gertrude Stein and Al Carmines 'In Circles' Softpalate Gertrude Stein plays in UbuWeb Sound Is Dead (Portrait Incomplet de Gertrud Stein) (2000) dir. Arnaud des Pallières in UbuWeb Film Gertrude Stein Reading Her Own Works Working notes by Ulla Dydo The Making Of Americans Matisse A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso: Text Portrait of Christian Bérard Madame Recamier. An Opera. How She Bowed To Her Brother Interview 1934 (1:19). If I Told Him A Completed Portrait of Picasso From 1906 on, Picasso was the great artist and the great friend in Stein's life. His portrait of her and hers of him joined his art to hers and hers to his as both were also joined in friendship. "Portraits and prayers," the phrase first used in An Elucidation, speaks of the juncture of the visual and verbal, painting and writing, Picasso and Stein. In the powerful rhythmic construction of this portrait, the repeated questions and incomplete sentences question completion and refuse to name what history teaches. In the Autobiography Stein says that she delighted that summer in the waves on the shore at Antibes, where the portrait was written, as was Geography. The waves are more than background. Inside the portrait they become Picasso's creative energy; the conquering armies of the leader, whether Napoleon or Picasso; his power over the empire of art, which might yet, like Napoleon's, crumble; and the fickle sexuality, misogyny, and flattery characteristic of Picasso. Would he like it if she told him all this? Would he like it if she told on him? Would he like what she knows about him? Such questions, with their tone of gossip and threat, flattery and secrecy, are also never answered but persistently and rhythmically repeated. The manuscript shows an interesting textual discrepancy in the text, which is here restored to the handwritten original. In the section on "exact resemblance," a period before "To exact" in the manuscript makes the difference between an adjective and a verb: "Exact resemblance. To exact resemblance the exact resemblance as exact as resemblance, exactly as resembling, exactly and resembling. . . ." The verb "to exact" adds energy to the creative struggle. Stein explores all possible forms in which "exact" can be joined with "resemblance." The geography of this portrait is internal, sexual, procreative, in its sucking, pushing, and heaving. It also becomes the actual geography of the coast of the Midithe waves, the tides, and the land that compose Geography. A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson The valentine was written in St.-Rémy, not for Valentine's Day, which is hardly the only occasion for a love poem. For Stein, the occasion was the publication of Geography and Plays in December 1922. She was indebted to Sherwood Anderson for the foreword, which added to her book a prominent name likely to make for sales and critical attention, as the publisher acknowledged. The "valentine" is an appreciation, an offering of thanks to Anderson. At the same time, most of the sections of the valentine are a love poem to Toklas, though she is not named. Without her inspiration and practical help neither Geography and Plays nor any other book could have been produced. She was the moving force behind Stein. The text and title of this piece went through changes. It is not known whether the sections were composed in the order in which they are printed, nor is the order or time of revisions of the title clear. Given the hints of Christmas and the late 1922 date of composition, the piece cannot have been written for Valentine's Day. The title "A Valentine," without a name, inscribes it to an unnamed recipient, plainly Toklas. Another title is Idem the Some. The piece later became "A Portrait of Sherwood Anderson," revised to A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson. Idem the Same appears in the form in which students memorize it, the Latin word followed immediately by its English translation, which makes the phrase redundant since it twice says what it means. But what is "the same" as what else is not stated. It may be one valentine written for or about two people, or two people who are both valentines of the writer. However, the valentine is a text inscribed to Anderson, with a subtext for or about Toklas, not named. On the back of the notebook for this piece are tiny private love verses to Toklas. Some become sections of the text. In the notes, details of "A Very Valentine" appear in more personal form than in typescript and in print. The original line "Very Stein is my valentine very Stein and very fine" becomes in print "Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine." Stein and Toklas are each other's valentines, two lovers who are one, idem the same. The valentine has a pastoral, religious tone and a formal, processional feeling, with counting and lists of diverse detail in order of size, such as pervade much of Stein's writing in St.-Rémy. "A very little snail. / A medium sized turkey. / ... / A fair orange tree. /. . . / Listen to them from here." Alice Toklas said that as Stein wrote "A History Of Giving Bundles" she inserted into it, presumably at the hotel in St.- Rémy, the figures and gifts from a procession to the Christmas criche on the mantle. Never heavy and systematic, the poem plays lyrically and lightly, as if ringing changes or offering blessings to creatures, to nautre, and in words. --Ulla Dydo From A Gertrude Stein Reader, Northwestern University Press, 1993 These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the Estate of Gertrude Stein. © 2005 Estate of Gertrude Stein. Used with permission of Estate of Gertrude Stein, through its Literary Executor, Mr. Stanford Gann, Jr. of Levin & Gann, P.A Distributed by Penn Sound and UbuWeb. UbuWeb Sound | UbuWeb PennSound | GreyLodge | Artmob | EPC | WFMU |