Description
Book SynopsisExamines how surrealism enriches our understanding of Gertrude Stein's writing through its poetics of oppositions. Gertrude Stein's Surrealist Years brings to life Stein's surrealist sensibilities and personal values borne from her WWII anxieties, not least of which originated in a dread of anti-Semitism.
Trade ReviewGertrude Stein (1874-1946) is not known as a surrealist, but she was closely involved with people associated with the movement, among them Picasso and AndrÉ Breton. Shin examines Stein’s involvement with these artists and writers and shows how these relationships drew her and her writing into the movement, especially in her novels
Ida and
Mrs. Reynolds. Written in clear and accessible prose, this volume examines Stein's writing during a time of her life marked by complexity and ambivalence. Recommended" -
CHOICE"
Gertrude Stein’s Surrealist Years is a serious and original contribution to Stein studies. The breadth of historical and literary contexts is impressive as well as Shin’s exquisite close readings of a wide range of Stein’s primary texts." - Sharon J. Kirsch, author of
Gertrude Stein and the Reinvention of Rhetoric and coeditor of
Primary Stein: Returning to the Writing of Gertrude Stein"In this original, provocative, and necessary study, Ery Shin brings new insight and perspective to a growing body of important scholarship, arguing for the implicitly progressive politics of Stein’s sui generis aesthetics. Crucially, Shin’s book also stands as a firm and powerful response to the spurious yet nevertheless persistent claims surrounding Stein’s alleged fascist leanings, for in lucid and convincing prose she shows how Stein’s artistic vision aligns with the dream state that her contemporaries among the Surrealists practiced and advocated as an antiauthoritarian consciousness. This book opens an entirely new conversation and will surely inspire new debate." - Amy Moorman Robbins, author of
American Hybrid Poetics: Gender, Mass Culture, and Form
