Gertrude+Stein

=Gertrude Stein=

Gertrude Stein was an American playwright, novelist, and poet who was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 3, 1874 and died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France on July 27, 1946. She was born as the youngest of five children into a wealthy Jewish family that spoke German and English in their home. Her father owned a public transportation business. Throughout her life she collected art, read from renowned English authors, such as Shakespeare, and wrote her own books, poems, and speeches.

Stein’s most loved quality in her writing was her modernism. She started writing literature in the 1920s, however her best known success was The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, written in 1933. She is also famous for the quote, “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” in her poem Sacred Emily written in 1913.

Stein was known as a realist thinker, and this was an example of her thoughts. In the quote, the first “Rose” is a name, however the following three “roses” are to exemplify that a rose in itself is only a rose. Stein always believed that an object or thing is exactly what it is, one can’t really change it. By stating that a rose is a rose repeatedly, Stein clarified that the rose is only a rose, nothing more.

In Stein’s later years, while she lived in France, she wrote a memoir titled Paris France that was published in 1940. It was published on the day that Paris was captured by Germany in World War II. The book is written from a first-person view as a “stream of consciousness.” What this means is that Stein’s thoughts were being processed through and written in the book as she was thinking them. It was written from the viewpoint of Stein herself and how she viewed the French people in their everyday lives, giving personal insight into her mind.

Stein is known today as an interesting personality, although her works are not often read. Without a doubt, however, she has left her mark on modern literature. She added new ideas and patterns to the “stream of consciousness” writing style. From the 1920s to the 1940s, there weren’t many other literary geniuses who were as well-known as her, leaving that time period to be known as Stein’s to keep.