A Study Guide for Gertrude Stein's "Stanza LXXXIII"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Gertrude Stein's "Stanza LXXXIII," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535834032

Book preview

11

Stanza LXXXIII

Gertrude Stein

1956

Introduction

In 1932, Gertrude Stein wrote an extensive poetic sequence called Stanzas in Meditation. The eighty-three-stanza work was not published as a whole until 1956, after Stein's death. The final stanza, identified only by stanza number like all the other stanzas in the series, is reflective of Stein's experimental aims concerning the poetic form, language and meaning, and abstraction. Stanza LXXXIII is almost completely devoid of visual imagery, and the language Stein uses is suggestive of multiple layers of meaning and seems to insist upon its own lack of ability to convey intention or significance. Stein combines this careful selection of language with an infrequent usage of punctuation, along with line breaks that seem to cut off streams of thought midway through their expression. Such elements work together to lend the stanza a hazy, indistinct quality. The brief verse includes suggestions of coming and going, of doors opening and closing, implying that the stanza series as a whole, while coming to an end, initiates a new phase for the reader and the writer. The overall effect of Stein's wordplay and stream-of-consciousness style underscores themes Stein develops elsewhere in the larger poetic sequence. In particular, Stein meditates on the purpose and effect of language and poetic expression, allowing her internal, philosophical explorations a voice.

Originally published by Yale University Press in 1956, Stanzas in Meditation, the sequence that includes Stanza LXXXIII, is available in a 1998 collection by the Library of America. This collection, Stein: Writings, 1932–1946, includes poetry, lectures, essays, and short fiction and was edited by Catharine R. Stimpson and Harriet Chessman.

Author Biography

Stein was born on February 3, 1874, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, as the youngest of the five children of Amelia Keyser and Daniel Stein. Stein's birth was preceded by the arrival of two other siblings who died during their infancy. A year after Stein's birth, her