时间：2022-10-27 06:11:53
Abstract：Gertrude Stein is difficult to read， and she is regarded as an eccentric. This paper tries to analyze her early work Three Lives under the influence of Cubist art from the aspect of narrative structure， the stylistic flatness， and the motivated repetition to conclude that Gertrude Stein is undeniably unorthodox.
Key words：Cubist； Three Lives； flat； repetition
中图分类号：H319 文献标识码： A 文章编号：1672-1578（2013）08-0003-02
Gertrude Stein is regarded as one of the most remarkable writers of the twentieth century. Three Lives is described as her first experimental work. Stein developed an abstract manner of expression that was a counterpart in language to the work of the Post-impressionists and Cubists in the visual arts. Her radical approach was admired and emulated by other authors of her era， including Ernest Hemingway， Thornton Wilder and Sherwood Anderson， and served as a key inspiration for many modernist writers. The present paper will focus on the experimental writing techniques in Three Lives under the influence of the Cubist painters.
In 1903， in order to stay with her brother Leo， Stein moved to Paris， where Leo had established a residence―the famous 27 Rue de Fleurus. The Steins immersed themselves in the Parisian art world and collected art including the works of the many avant-garde painters of the era： Picasso， Matisse， Gris， and Cézanne. Soon in the home they began their famous Saturday salons which were frequented by friends， family， and art collectors as well as artists， musicians， and writers. Stein was attracted by their new ideas， and became quickly acquainted with the emerging Modernist art and inevitably with many painters who lived in the artists’ quarter.
Stein owed much to the Cubist painters in her literary works. With new ideas of reality and perception， the artists searched for new modes of representation， depicting their subjects―the usual apples， landscapes， bodies， and faces―with very untraditional techniques. A Cubist or fauvist painter might， for example， reduce his subject to its basic geometric shapes and intensify the colors； painting a room or a landscape， he might erase traditional distinctions between foreground and background， so that the wallpaper holds the viewer’s eye as forcefully as the still life on the table. A Cubist might try to put on canvas several different views of his subject at once， so that a face becomes a fan of sharp angles and lines， repeating one part over again with slight variations. And painters working in many different styles would apply the paint heavily to the canvas， compelling the viewer to become aware of the paint itself as a material and to realize that they are looking at a canvas， rather than at an actual apple or body. Among the painters， Stein gets a lot from Cézanne and Picasso.
1 Stein and Cézanne
In The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas， Stein claims to have begun Three Lives by attempting a translation of Gustave Flaubert’s Trois Contes while sitting beneath Paul Cézanne’s portrait of his wife，“Madame Cézanne”. In“Composition as Explanation”（1926）， Stein says “Cézanne conceived the idea that in composition one thing was as important as another thing. Each part is as important as the whole， and that impressed me enormously， and it impressed me so much that I began to write Three Lives under this influence and this idea of composition … I was obsessed by this idea of composition， and the Negro Story （“Melanctha” in Three Lives） was a quintessence of it.”
Cézanne broke with traditional forms （such as perspective） and traditional modes （such as pictorial replication）. He did so by accenting the verticals， horizontals， and diagonals that he saw in nature. He moved painting towards geometric forms， towards the abstract， and developed new spatial patterns in which， by showing an object simultaneously from several viewpoints， planes and surfaces interacted visually on the canvas. His paintings are not of nature， but provide a visualization of the formal parts of what he saw. Cézanne said that he did not paint pictures； he painted paint. Stein does the same thing with words.
As in Cézanne’s paintings， one part is as important as any other thing， Stein employs a stylistic flatness in Three Lives. In “Melanctha，” Stein concentrates on individual moments of present time rather than on a continuous narrative line that flows steadily from past through present to future. As we have seen， Stein can switch quite easily from the present into a past moment―not because the past is either real or important in itself， but because each individual is a presently existent entity who embodies the sum of all he or she has done in each of the continuously present moments that comprise what we now call “the past.” By employing this conception of time， Stein’s narratives are highly unified because she concentrates in each separate moment upon the same set of qualities that defines the basic nature of her characters.
2 Stein and Picasso
In 1938， Gertrude Stein published Picasso， a book which is part biography and part criticism of Pablo Picasso’s work and time. In it Stein claims “I was alone at the time in understanding him， perhaps because I was expressing the same thing in literature”. Her comparison of her work to Picasso’s relies not so much on form as it does on effect， and it offers a method for reading both her critical and creative work and the work of her critics.
This use of incantatory repetition helps to establish both Anna and Lena as primitively simple personalities who are fixed in their modes of life and who think and do everything within the context of inexorable circumstance.
The reader sees that Stein has constructed a classic discourse between reason and emotion by using the repetition. Because the language sounds so much like real people’s speechcircular， repetitious， boringits classic pattern has been entirely overlooked. However， the style of incremental repetition attracted readers’ attention， but sometimes drove them away from the text.
27 Rue de Fleurus is the artists’ quarter， where Gertrude Stein was inspired by the Cubist Art. Under Cubists influence， Stein employs flatness in the narration， and the famous motivated repetition in Three Lives， which paves her way to her experimental literature and modernism.
Works Cited：
[1]Stein，position as Explanation[J]. in Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein， ed. Carl Van Vechten. New York： Random House， 1926：15-6.
[2]Stein， Gertrude. Picasso[M]. Boston：Beacon， 1956： 16.
[3]Stein， Gertrude. Three Lives and Q.E.D[M]. DeKoven Marianne， ed. New York & London： w.w.Norton & Company， 2006：1.
[4]Stein， Gertrude. The Autobiography of Alice B[M]. Toklas. New York： Vintage Books， 1990.
作者简介：刘莹（1978-），女，四川崇州人。绵阳师范学院讲师，硕士。主要研究方向：英美文学，外语教学。