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Word's Inhalation and Exhalation Breathing Poetry in Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons Flore Chevaillier Lehigh University

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Word's Inhalation and Exhalation Breathing Poetry in Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons Flore Chevaillier Lehigh University View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Lehigh University: Lehigh Preserve Lehigh University Lehigh Preserve Theses and Dissertations 2003 Word's inhalation and exhalation breathing poetry in Gertrude Stein's Tender buttons Flore Chevaillier Lehigh University Follow this and additional works at: http://preserve.lehigh.edu/etd Recommended Citation Chevaillier, Flore, "Word's inhalation and exhalation breathing poetry in Gertrude Stein's Tender buttons" (2003). Theses and Dissertations. Paper 796. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Lehigh Preserve. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Lehigh Preserve. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Chevaillier, Flore "Words' Inhalation and Exhalation Breathing Poetry in Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons" May 2003 "Words' Inhalation and Exhalation Breathing Poetry in Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons" by Flore Chevaillier A Thesis presented to the Graduate and Research Committee OfLehigh University In Candidacy for the Degree of Master ofArts In English Lehigh University Table ofcontents Abstract 1 "Words' Inhalation and Exhalation Breathing Poetry in Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons" 3 Works cited 26 Vita 28 111 Table offigures Figure 1 13 Figure 2 15 Figure 3 17 Figure 4 20 IV Abstract This paper analyzes the trope ofbreath in Tender Buttons. Breath is present both thematically-in individual poems-and structurally when it appears in different poems and thus connects them. Critics interpreting Gertrude Stein's work debate the way her language produces meaning. One ofthe most contorted techniques in Stein is her use ofrepetition. Some critics consider Stein's poetry as pure abstract language. Some other critics look for hidden messages that express taboo topics. I argue that words do not lose meaning when being repeated and connected at a phonological level. It becomes clear, when diagramming the poems that breath appears in Stein's language at different levels ofinterpretation (phonologically, semantically and structurally). I apply here William Gass's theory on the spatialization ofwords. I therefore use diagrams as interpretative tools in my demonstration. I show first how doublings in Tender Buttons are expressions ofbreaths. My argument is influenced by Marianne DeKoven's analysis ofStein's language and its "pulse" as well as her attention to syntax and rhythm. The two part movement of repetition and the double structure ofthe poems represent inhalation and exhalation. Tender Buttons focuses on the breathing rhythm that penetrates both the semantic doublings and the structure ofthe poems. Secondly, I provide an analysis ofrepetition that shows how breath is a pattern that connects the poems ofthe collection. Repetition represents respiration at another level ofinterpretation: it penetrates the structure ofthe book. It enables variation on the theme ofopening and closing that mirrors the process ofrespiration. 1 Eventually I examine the response ofreaders to Tender Buttons. I consider the collection ofpoems as a body breathing in and out to the reader. The reader is both an outsider needed for the system ofbreath to appear but s/he is also part ofthe system. 2 "Grammar. In a breath" (69), Stein writes in How to Write. To the author the breath vibrates in the "grammar," the composition ofthe sentences and the organization ofthe poems themselves. Any pronounced word is part ofan exhalation process. Then, when linking her grammar to breath, Stein links the fixity ofher written words to the movement ofa respiration that accompanies speech. That is why we can understand Stein's poetry as a metaphor ofa breathing body. My concern is then to map out the way the text can be seen as a body itself, the movement ofwhich can be connected to the pattern ofthe breathing process. The poems are organized in a dualistic system driven by inhalation and exhalation that balances the text. Here I interpret the poems' words both literally and symbolically with a special interest in the different levels ofthe breathing that develop throughout the book. The double movement mirrors the sentences' architecture. Respiration appears both at the level of individual poems and ofthe collection ofpoems. Tender Buttons invites us to focus more precisely on the reader's participation, as the book is a body in connection to the reader through the act ofbreathing. Marianne DeKoven deals with a trope that can be compared to breathing when she defines the "pulse" ofStein's fiction. She explains that "Stein establishes an equivalence between abstract qualities of consciousness and formal qualities of language: a particular pulse ("density, continuity, speed, quantity") of consciousness becomes a particular kind ofsyntax, phrasing rhythm, diction, tone" (38). DeKoven sees "pulse" related to consciousness in Stein's fiction. In her poetry, this pulse can be analyzed as the intensity of a breathing body. When 3 DeKoven refers to pulse, she defines it as "a particular kind of syntax, phrasing, rhythm, diction, tone" (38). Breathing is also related to the particular use Stein makes ofsyntax and rhythm. Breath implies both a repetitive beat and a movement of coming in and going out. Because ofthis two fold movement, impulsion seems more appropriate t than Dekoven's pulse to our analysis. Impulsion is a French word that refers both to a physical pushing movement and simultaneously a spontaneous action (impulse). The movement that animates the text and pushes breath (i.e., in language) towards the reader is represented by the impulsion. The physical pressure of impulsion is produced from within a body. To be more precise, the push from within ofthe impulsion corresponds to the play of inside and outside in the text that ressembles an inhalation and exhalation. Second, the spontaneous aspect of the impulsion represents the impulse of breath that is a mechanical animation of our bodies. This theme is recurrent in the book and it makes the reader experience a rhythm similar to the one s/he experiences in breathing. Moreover, the repetitive mode of creation that alters the syntax makes us understand the way breath repeats through variation. The image of breath is congruent with the construction of the poems. Eventually, breath brings the reader back to a body and changes hislher approach to poetry. Many Stein readers get frustrated when reading Tender Buttons because ofthe opacity of Stein's language. The question ofmeaning when interpreting Gertrude Stein's work is crucial because it determines the bases for the critics' approaches. 4 Does Stein's poetry mean something? Does she convey a message or does she only enjoy playing with words and invites us to do so? Stein's words should be understood both in their literal and symbolic way. The best contribution that has been made on Stein's work has focused on the relationship ofthe reader to the text. As Harriett Chessman shows, Tender Buttons can be read and "re-created" by its reader. Poetry is defined as a " composition in verse or metrical language, or in some equivalent patterned arrangement oflanguage; usually also with choice ofelevated words and figurative uses, and option ofa syntactical order, differing more or less from those of ordinary speech or prose writing."(OED my emphasis). Only ifwe take into account these two dimensions can we understand Steins' poetry as an expression that is not reduced to mere allusions to the author's life or to an abstraction or a pure linguistic game. The response ofthe reader to the text is central to my analysis ofTender Buttons. I consider diagrams ofTender Buttons as forms ofreader response. William Gass, diagrams Stein's poems to show how their spatial re-structuring unpacks the internal patterns in Stein's language, thereby exposing what he calls the "space inside them" (83). Diagramming is one ofthe tools I will use when interpreting the poems. Although I do not wish to follow Gass's biographical interpretation ofTender Buttons, his reading ofspatiality in language is helpful to the reading ofStein I am proposing. We have to focus on the atypical meaning Stein's words convey: "Stein's words are full ofpresence" (Gray 46). Presence comes from the appearing ofbreath in poetry. Stein refers to breathing in "Rooms": "no breath is shadowed, no breath is painstaking ..." and in "Objects": "there is that hope and that interpretation and 5 sometimes, surely any is unwelcome, sometimes there is breath." Breathing is connected to Stein's writing; she refers to it both in her poetry in Tender Buttons or Lifting Belly and theoretical writings such as in "On Pronunciation" and How to Write. Why can breathing be interpreted as a theme that guides our understanding in the text? It would be unfair to Stein's poetry to interpret her words as we would do in our everyday life: "the sentences do not 'mean' in a conventional way" (Dubnick 103). The author invites us to change our relationship to language: one would not be able to paraphrase Tender Buttons for that matter. But there is no such thing as a purely abstract language so Stein also wants us to think about her words and the meanings and implications ofthe words she chooses: Stein is not an alchemist transforming words into things and things into words. Neither is she the inventor ofa private language or a rebel against language altogether. She accepts language for what it is ... When she uses words, she rejects nothing. Words are physical and auditory realities. Together they make community (Gray 55). Stein approaches meaning in a different way and plays with the associations ofthe words. However her choice ofwords is not arbitrary or random. Consequently, what organizes those words, and how do we get to meaning when reading such experimental writing? It has been stated that "the elementary fact to understand about Gertrude Stein is that she is incomprehensible because there is nothing there to comprehend" (Russel 88).
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