Cooking with Tender Buttons Food: Mutton. Stanzas 7-13. Discussion 2

THE BOOK ..........................-      TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-      FOOD

THE SUBPOEM ...................-      Mutton

WORD COUNT (Total)……...-      534

STANZA(S)............................-      13

—Stanzas 1-6

—Stanzas 7-13

THE LEADER........................-      THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS.............-      MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

The second half of “Mutton.” does not seem to elicit much of Gertrude Stein’s biography except in stanza 7 a wider lens on the sadness she experienced at the end of her medical studies when she was dumped and duped by May Bookstaver. Generally speaking, stanzas 7 through 13 seem to rise to mythology—the Jewish creation myth—but then back into an American myth about George Washington as a youth chopping down his father’s cherry tree.

Here are “Mutton.” stanzas 7 through 13 with a 367-word count. Among the topics addressed in this post are: Gertrude Stein as hunter picks through the shards of her failed medical career; creation myths, including the golem and Pandora; food taboos and nourishment; The Word as Seed; in a primitive market with food hanging from the ceiling; cherries evoking virgins and the young George Washington; cake from suet; the moral edge of cake re: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night; Gertrude Stein at Woods Hole and whalebones; and the connection between Tender Buttons and Moby Dick.

Melting and not minding, safety and powder, a particular recollection and a sincere solitude all this makes shunning so thorough and so unrepeated and surely if there is anything left it is a bone. It is not solitary.

Any space is not quiet it is so likely to be shiny. Darkness very dark darkness is sectional. There is a way to see in onion and surely very surely rhubarb and a tomatoe, surely very surely there is that seeding. A little thing in is a little thing.

Mud and water were not present and not any more of either. Silk and stockings were not present and not any more of either. A receptacle and a symbol and no monster were present and no more. This made a piece show and was it a kindness, it can be asked was it a kindness to have it warmer, was it a kindness and does gliding mean more. Does it.

Does it dirty a ceiling. It does not. Is it dainty, it is if prices are sweet. Is it lamentable, it is not if there is no undertaker. Is it curious, it is not when there is youth. All this makes a line, it even makes no more. All this makes cherries. The reason that there is a suggestion in variety is due to this that there is a burst of mixed music.

A temptation any temptation is an exclamation if there are misdeeds and little bones. It is not astonishing that bones mingle as they vary not at all and in any case why is a bone outstanding, it is so because the circumstance that does not make a cake and character is so easily churned and cherished.

Mouse and mountain and a quiver, a quaint statue and pain in an exterior and silence more silence louder shows salmon a mischief intender. A cake, a real salve made of mutton and liquor, a specially retained rinsing and an established cork and blazing, this which resignation influences and restrains, restrains more altogether. A sign is the specimen spoken.

A meal in mutton, mutton, why is lamb cheaper, it is cheaper because so little is more. Lecture, lecture and repeat instruction.

“I see again Gertrude Stein's reaching back to origination, the source of creativity and nourishment, illumination, the tiny glowing seed that will become a tree of wisdom and light.” Mary Armour

AFTER HUNTING FOR THE BIG GAME, LEFT WITH A BONE

Starting at stanza 7, Karren Alenier said:

Melting and not minding, safety and powder, a particular recollection and a sincere solitude all this makes shunning so thorough and so unrepeated and surely if there is anything left it is a bone. It is not solitary.

“The scene set by the words of this stanza (safety, powder) makes me think of hunting which is often done as a solitary sport where the hunter goes into a blind to wait for the prey.

“There in that absolute solitude from people. One has time to recollect. If Gertrude Stein is the hunter, she may be reflecting on her failed medical career, a failing that might have made certain people she knew shun her. 

“Maybe that solitary bone refers to ‘a bone to pick’—does Stein have a beef with someone? Maybe there is more than one bone to pick and that's why she says ‘It is not solitary.’”

Peter Treanor answered,

“Yes, Karren, I can see the safety, powder and solitude having to do with hunting and maybe it’s not solitary as the prey or the thought of the prey is ever present. And maybe melting is melting into the environment, becoming camouflaged, and melting into the moment, not minding, not thinking, just being.

“But when I read it, it seemed to have a really sad, mournful tone. A sense of melting, of loosing of self. A particular recollection, a memory of serious/sincere solitude and loneliness and of being shunned. She was stripped to the bone by this experience, unsure if there was anything left of her by this experience. Could it be her rejection by May that she is recalling? The bone to pick could be with May.”

Alenier added:

“I agree, Pete, about the mournful tone & how the melting might go to just being as opposed to doing.

“This hunting around for survival calls up the white hunter in Objects!”

A WHITE HUNTER.

A white hunter is nearly crazy.

THE SEEDS OF KABALLAH

Stanza 8 is clearly connected to the earth in a way that comments on our existence. Here’s what Alenier had to say:

Any space is not quiet it is so likely to be shiny. Darkness very dark darkness is sectional. There is a way to see in onion and surely very surely rhubarb and a tomatoe, surely very surely there is that seeding. A little thing in is a little thing.

“Perhaps, Stein is reaching into the myths of Kabbalah here and one of the clues might be the medieval spelling of tomato with an 'e' on the end. 

“Also I'm remembering that commentary on Jewish laws including the food laws are contained in Mishnah. This link might be useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeraim”

Here Steiny will interrupt to say that seeds and a little thing are important to Stein and point to her creations/babies (books) that Alice will midwife (by typing and packaging them).

Off on a tangent but calling this a news flash, Alenier went deeper into the Mishnah to look at Bikkurim, the first fruits where she discovers related to a group of gender diverse people:

“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikkurim_(Talmud) I'm looking at this webpage which talks about what you do with the first fruits from your garden.”

Bikkurim (Hebrew: ביכורים‎, lit. "First-fruits") is the eleventh tractate of Seder Zeraim ("Order of Seeds") of the Mishnah and of the Talmud.

“The fourth chapter [of Bikkurim}, which is only sometimes included, originates from the Tosefta Bikkurim. It compares the laws relating to men, women, and those of intermediate sex, including the tumtum (one with no genitalia) and the androgynos.

“Big gender discussion here! Surely Stein knew about this.”

FOOD TABOOS & NOURISHMENT

Always an able interpreter of Stein, Mary Armour offered:

“I do think we are touching on food taboos, on forbidden pleasures, on the right and proper and improper uses of food. I think we're looking too at rituals and the deep maternal and childlike needs around nourriture, what nourishes the body and spirit. What melts down and is transmuted or transformed into liquid, what enriches and darkens or rises as a soufflé, what changes when heat is applied.

“The repeated references to bones as well, the charnel house of bone and ash, the shunning of dangerous small bones in fish or quail, the bones as structuring the body and the seed that is planted and dies to become something green and flowering or fruiting. (Thinking of André Gide's Si le grain ne meurt...)

“Let me give this some more thought.”

Alenier responded:

“I heartily agree that Stein is dealing with ritual, taboo, and life-sustaining nourishment!

“That little thing in is a little thing could be a seed. What kind of seed looms large! Vegetable, human—semen, conceptual?”

THE WORD AS SEED

Gaining momentum, Armour added:

“Karren, let me just riff here for a moment because something comes back to me about the seed as spark—Stein is particularly interesting to us as a writer because she has this omnivorous cultural and theoretical absorption, taking in so much from all kinds of cultural and theological influences and, perhaps here, we could reach back to Logos spermatikos, the Word as Seed, the Word as Light from the Gospel of John ('In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ...and the Word became Flesh") a mysterious and potent statement.

“And then of course we have the emanations of the Sephirot and the fragments of light or seeds as sparks (my interpretation here leans to Lurianic, from the Shattering or Shevirah), A key text cited here is Gen 1:11—"And Elohim said, 'Let the Earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth.' And it was so.

“This is too complex a field and I'm not sure how to sustain or follow through on metaphors here at any depth or even sure-footedly, but I see again Gertrude Stein's reaching back to origination, the source of creativity and nourishment, illumination, the tiny glowing seed that will become a tree of wisdom and light.”

Alenier responded:

“Yes, Mary! I see hear where you are pointing—origination! Makes perfect sense Stein would start at the beginning to establish her thoughts/study for how to renew the language. Humbly I say it is like us her students digging into the root meanings of the words she chooses.

“This is also why we get glances of Medieval flourishes. Tomatoe vs tomato.”

Greeting Armour warmly, Treanor had this to say:

“Hello Mary nice to see you back again! There is the seed there and the source of creativity and nourishment, but there is also a darker side. A feeling of death, aging, and decay. All those bones, all those not any more's, no more's, lament, darkness and even an undertaker, a ceiling of dirt (nearly- a does it dirty a ceiling). There is something of the grave (both serious and a tomb) here. The whole cycle of life. Death and decay leading to fertilization and regeneration and seeds and regrowth. A feeling that the old (it is not when there is youth) must die, be buried, undertake to have an undertaker, be put in a receptacle, have a ceiling of dirt, and be reduced to bones.

“Melting and not minding

sincere solitude

if there is anything left it is a bone

were not present and not any more of either. (repeated 3 times)

A receptacle and a symbol and no monster were present and no more

Is it lamentable

Darkness very dark darkness

it is not if there is no undertaker

it is not when there is youth

 it even makes no more

“Such somber language and then finished with a strange thought about mutton (?old age) and lamb (?youth) suggesting lamb (youth) is cheaper because it is little but then that little is more. Leaving me wondering does she mean it is more or less valuable than mutton (old age)?

“I’m supposing you have the saying Mutton dressed up as lamb, too. Mutton and lamb used to indicate age.”

Cooking with Tender Buttons Food: Mutton. Stanzas 1-6. Discussion 1

THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           FOOD

THE SUBPOEM ...................-           Mutton

WORD COUNT (Total)……...-           534

STANZA(S)............................-            13

—Stanzas 1-6

THE LEADER........................-           THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS.............-            MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

“Mutton.” is the second subpoem of Tender Buttons section 2 Food. Like “Roastbeef.”, the first subpoem of Food, Stein is choosing a meat as her title and a tough meat at that. While eating mutton isn’t the main through line of this subpoem, the choice is a curious one since Americans do not eat it and Stein bills herself as American writer.

The Buttons Collective begins with the first six stanzas of “Mutton.”, which has a 165-word count, including the title. Among the topics addressed in this post are: Stein as a student; sheep and lambs as saturated symbols; Mutton Quad; mutton as echo of button; printer’s loupe and seeing; ruminating students; students, pupils and dilation; Stein teaching her readers to see; and sexual innuendo.

MUTTON.

A letter which can wither, a learning which can suffer and an outrage which is simultaneous is principal.

Student, students are merciful and recognised they chew something.

Hate rests that is solid and sparse and all in a shape and largely very largely. Interleaved and successive and a sample of smell all this makes a certainty a shade.

Light curls very light curls have no more curliness than soup. This is not a subject.

Change a single stream of denting and change it hurriedly, what does it express, it expresses nausea. Like a very strange likeness and pink, like that and not more like that than the same resemblance and not more like that than no middle space in cutting.

An eye glass, what is an eye glass, it is water. A splendid specimen, what is it when it is little and tender so that there are parts. A centre can place and four are no more and two and two are not middle.

“Mutton is evidently some type of fancy meat—and the piece seems to have little to do with meat.  I am trying to do metapoetics on it.” Judy Meibach

THE LETTER THAT WITHERS, LIGHT THAT FAILS, FOUR NO MORE

The Steiny Road Poet ventures that these six stanzas might address Stein’s last days as a student at Johns Hopkins Medical School. In stanza 2, Stein establishes that students are in this landscape and they seem to be kind and ruminating on what is given to them. However, in stanza 3, Stein addresses hate, which is substantial (solid) though distributed in a scattered way (sparse). This hate stinks (a sample of smell) and casts a shadow (shade). The letter which can wither was commented on in the ModPo discussion forum as follows:

Karren Alenier:

“Stein could have gotten a piece of correspondence that threw her off. Either a letter of reprimand from school or a letter of rejection from her love interest May Bookstaver.” [The withering letter from May would have come while Stein was at Johns Hopkins and this letter is said to have been what pushed her over the edge to the decision to leave medical school without achieving her degree.]

About stanza 4— Light curls very light curls have no more curliness than soup. This is not a subject.—Steiny offers that Stein is seeing a curve (curl) from the light in which case the light might be her education, something that nourishes like soup. However, this curving light or insight is not on the curriculum and therefore not a subject to be studied.

Stanza 5 with words like change, hurriedly, express, nausea, cutting if applied to Stein’s departure from Johns Hopkins indicates upsetting action. Other words in stanza 5—very strange likeness, pink, same resemblance, and the repetition of like four times could be associated with same sex preference relative to female relationships given the word pink, a color typically associated with girls and women.

Stanza 6 could be seen as Stein the scientist with her eye to a microscope examining small things, which have turned out to be tender and in various parts. The four that are no more could be those years at medical school and so what should add up in that formula of two and two doesn’t get to be that safe place (middle) between the extremes.

Now let’s get into the details and hear from others discussing these stanzas.

SHEEP TALK: PHYSICS, PERCEPTION & READING STEIN

Andrew S. Aguinaldo:

“Perhaps students figure in this discourse because they are lambs. Sheep are saturated symbols (Bible, idiomatic expressions), and maybe the idea is to cut into it, find something new through the trademark multiperspectival Steinian take.”

Here Steiny will interrupt because the lamb is also a saturated symbol probably best known in Western literature as a sacrifice because of its innocence and purity. In Christianity, Jesus is known as the Lamb of God, a name bestowed by John the Baptist. And the students of “Mutton.” could indeed be sacrificing innocence by what is learned. So maybe students start out as lambs but progress to something tougher. I hesitate to call them sheep since that indicates those that follow instead of thinking on their own so maybe the students eventually become something hard to chew or mutton?

Aguinaldo:

“The line Light curls very light curls have no more curliness than soup could refer to the coat of the living sheep, the smoke of the soup, perhaps the baby curls on very young, impressionable kids. I'm thinking of light too, in the curvature of time-space the subject matter of Einstein. 

“Or light, perhaps, means perspectival lines? Perhaps she is cuing us (again, anew) how best to read her work, another, more intricate way of putting slant-of-light or angle or (much more contemporary) spin.

“The last sentence This is not a subject is nice, approachable and forbidding all at once. Does it mean that we should not take her words academically? That she has some aversion to that? Or could she mean that light is to be seen as (or also as) adjective.

“Or is ‘This’ itself not a subject, esp. a this at that is itself, not taken to refer to anything except its placement?”

Steiny notes here that Andrew raises a lot complex associations dealing with physics, perception, and how to read Stein without settling on any one approach. Certainly this is indicative of the dimensionality Stein brings to the reader.

MUTTON QUAD OR PRINTER’S CODE

Peter Treanor:

“I’ve been looking at different uses of the word mutton, and came up with mutton quad which was a slang word used in printing and type setting. It has to do with the height/width of letters in print setting. It’s related to the em (M) in a way I don’t really understand. But was interested that it was called a mutton quad when there is talk of four (quad) in the poem and two and two, and not being central, and lots of other terms which seems like they could be related to printing and letters/lettering too.”

Treanor quoted from Wikipedia:

Em-quad is also a metal spacer used in printing presses. It is referred to by this name because it is composed of a square one em on each side. In old-fashioned printing presses, this allowed the insertion of an em space ( ) between other type. It is also occasionally referred to as a mutton quad.

Aguinaldo answered:

“I think stanza 1 and the middle part of stanza 3 agrees with you, Peter. Stanza 5 very strongly, I think:”

Change a single stream of denting and change it hurriedly, what does it express, it expresses nausea (space, blankness?)... and not more like that than no middle space in cutting. 



Steiny notes that mutton quad according to dictionary.com is a code term in printing coined to differentiate the pronunciation of em (M) quad from en (N) quad but we might have a problem here since this resource says the term came into use 1935-40. Hold on! Steiny found this in http://findwords.info/term/mutton

1871 Amer. Encycl. Printing (ed. Ringwalt), *Mutton Quad, a slang term, in English printing-offices, for em quad.

OF MUTTON AND BUTTONS

Next, Treanor looked at: A centre can place and four are no more and two and two are not middle. 

“That M in more in the sentence above is in the middle/centre of the sentence. There are 27 letters either side of it!

“I like the code of mutton being a fusion of May and button. May's (not so) tender buttons. And Mutton (dressed up as lamb) is a less than flattering image to evoke for someone who spurned your attempts at romance, so would seem to fit from that perspective.”

Aguinaldo responded:

"May quite possibly, given what Peter says about the ‘Mutton quad’ (also Mutton = May + Button?). I've been looking at the letter M as well, how it places well with the line: A centre can place…

“I wonder if M is (also) the letter that can wither, as W could be its image if it withers (and vice versa). Seeing letters reflected in water now (or dissolving to it, or become liquid Dali-style), thanks to you guys.”

Cooking with Tender Buttons Food: Roastbeef. Stanzas 1-37. Discussion 8

THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           FOOD

THE SUBPOEM ..................-            Roastbeef

WORD COUNT (Total)……..-           1757

STANZA(S)............................-           37

—Stanzas 1-3

—Stanzas 4-8

—Stanzas 9-17

—Stanzas 18-21

— Stanzas 22 through 29

—Stanzas 30 through 37

THE LEADER........................-           THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS.............-            MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

Among all the subpoems of the first two sections of Tender Buttons, “Roastbeef.” is the longest. Addressing the major themes of the entire work: existence, appearance, gender, sexuality, morality, and union, “Roastbeef.” is a critical subpoem. This post will be a broad-brush summary of the six separate discussions.

BACKGROUND & METHOD OF APPROACH

Starting in the fall of 2013, the Steiny Road Poet, working with international students signed up for the Coursera Modern & Contemporary American Poetry massive open online course (ModPo MOOC), has been slowly working through Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons using The Corrected Centennial Edition edited by Seth Perlow. The study takes place in the ModPo discussion forums. University of Pennsylvania professor Al Filreis, the ModPo developer, says this study is a MOOC inside a MOOC. The depth and duration of this study is unlike anything that has ever been done before with Tender Buttons.

Because “Roastbeef.” contains 1757 words (including the title) spread among 37 stanzas, Steiny divided the subpoem into six parts so that the Buttons Collective, as those ModPo students are known who participate in this study group, could more easily focus and stayed focus on individual stanzas. The results of those six separate discussions have been documented here on this blog. Additionally, there is a separate blog post for the title of this subpoem.

At the beginning of 2014 after spending several months studying subpoems of section 1 Objects, Steiny created a list of lessons learned. She is pleased to say that these lessons learned continue to apply to section 2 Food where “Roastbeef.” is the first subpoem. Additional lessons learned are accruing and so this summation of “Roastbeef.” may be useful in reading other subpoems of Food as well as rereading the subpoems of Objects. Nevertheless, Steiny still says that a reader can start anywhere in Tender Buttons and be able to appreciate what Stein has written at a basic level of “understanding.”

Tips to keep in mind while reading Tender Buttons are:

• Approach each subpoem as if it were an abstract painting and allow yourself room to appreciate what thoughts come to you.
• Stein often implants suggestions for how to read her texts within the text of Tender Buttons.
•  Key words in a subpoem merit looking up the possible meanings and origin of the word in a dictionary. Often the best dictionary for looking up word origination is the Oxford English Dictionary.
•   Repeated words signal that Stein is emphasizing something important in this text.
• Strings of words that don’t make grammatical sense may be associated with some kind of process that might involve for example: gaming, musicality, or grammatical shakeup.
• Expect the unexpected and allow for contradiction. Stein was a polymath who studied philosophy at Harvard with William James. Tender Buttons reaches into science, mathematics, physics, psychology, religion, superstition, nursery rhymes, classic literature (especially the plays of William Shakespeare), American literature, philosophy (including logic), and more.
• Stein points at texts by other writers rather than quoting them. Stein also suggests without employing strong literary allusion. This makes scholars says that her work is without literary allusion.
• American subjects play an important role in Tender Buttons. Stein was intent on being known as an American writer, despite living in Paris for most of her life.
• Knowing Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas’s biographies and world wide historic events help illuminate a great deal of Tender Buttons. This knowledge might help a reader buy into this premise: Tender Buttons is Stein’s love poem to her wife Alice Toklas as well as the covenant as to how they will live with each other and what they will leave as their legacy.
• For optimum reward, reading Stein requires participation by the reader. Stein believed in talking and listening, which Steiny says is about coming to the texts ready to work.

SO WHERE’S THE BEEF?

There is little mention of beef in the 37 stanzas of “Roastbeef.”. Only three stanzas use the word beef. Stanza 3 has no beefsteak and stanza 14 has never beef. Only stanza 25 employs the word beef without negation:

Please be the beef, please beef, pleasure is not wailing. Please beef, please be carved clear, please be a case of consideration.

The use of the word beef in stanza 25 seems more an exercise in wielding language than informing the reader about why the title of this subpoem is Roastbeef. The poet seems to be exhorting someone to take responsibility for some complaint (the beef) and then to let go and complain (to beef).

 “Roastbeef.” opens the Food section of Tender Buttons, but no mention of eating takes place. Stein only provides the furniture—stove, chairs and tables—accessories—plates and spoons—and verbs associated with eating meat—cuts and cutting. While disparaging the cow (…it does mean that a meadow is useful and a cow absurd—stanza 3), Stein perversely mentions chicken twice (Room to comb chickens and feathers—stanza 9 and To bury a slender chicken to raise an old feather—stanza 30) and other animals like lambs, goats, and colts (Why should ancient lambs be goats and young colts and never beef—stanza 14).

THE STORY OF BROTHER-SISTER-LOVER

Generally speaking across the stanzas of “Roastbeef.”, the most compelling continuity is a biographical narrative subtly sculpted into the words of this subpoem. That narrative begins with introduction to the love story of Stein and Toklas (stanzas 1-3) with emphasis on relationship. Stein plays with ship making it seem as the subpoem opens that the principal characters (those in this relation) are waking up on a riverboat steamer. The opening three stanzas are much more lyrical than what we have encountered in section 1 Objects which are generally shorter. Also contributing to this sense of lyricism is that Stein may be taking her poetic lead from William Shakespeare’s play As You Like It as well as from Genesis (the King James version).

Stanza 4 with words like reduction, reparation, no restraint seem to point to the riff between Gertrude and her brother Leo which occurred at the time Gertrude was writing Tender Buttons. Stanzas 9 through 17 beginning with the word room, which is repeated six times in stanza 9, seems to indicate that Leo’s departure from their common living space at 27 rue de Fleurus will give her room to do what she pleases. The following stanzas (10-17), starting with a barely polite breakfast scene, chronicle the sister-brother relationship including their philosophic exchanges, the Saturday night salons in their living room, and how the slightly older brother lorded his authority over his sister. Meanwhile in the background, Stein shows Toklas as a shadow in the kitchen.

Stanza 18 juxtaposes bone and bones (7 occurrences) with time (2 times), choice(s) (3 times), difference (1 time), kind (5 times). “Roastbeef.” includes these words in this count: bone and bones (7 occurrences), time (10 times), choice(s) (6 times), difference (6 times), kind (9 times). One way of reading stanza 18 is that Stein is showing us the bone of contention between her and Leo. The contention involves Gertrude choosing to be a writer instead of a doctor, and in the face of the time she lived in, that did not allow for difference in gender identity (the kind of person she was who identified as male versus female) and for Gertrude choosing a lifetime partner of the same sex.

Stanzas 22 through 29 could be read as Gertrude acknowledging the loss of her brother despite the beef he has with her over Alice. These stanzas also return to the passion (as embodied in the words furnace and blanket) Gertrude has for her chosen one.

The concluding stanzas 30 through 37 gather together all aspects of brother-sister-lover triangle, which Stein boils down to a matter of preserving her union with Toklas. By pointing in stanza 37 to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (and by inference the jeopardy that exacted in preserving the Union, the United States of America, after a bloody civil war): All the stain is tender and lilacs really lilacs are disturbed, Stein invokes Walt Whitman’s elegy for Lincoln “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” as well as the broader concern that her American union (with California-born Toklas) must and will survive despite there being no delight (referring to the sadness of losing the relationship with her brother) and no mathematics (money) in it. The fact that the stain (bloodstain) is tender puts additional weight on Tender Buttons, the title of the entire work. Union might also be a plausible explanation why Stein makes “Roastbeef.”, this subpoem’s title one word instead of two.

THE LITERARY POINTERS

Unlike the shorter subpoems of section 1 Objects, “Roastbeef.” is full of literary pointers, some of which have already been mentioned. However, for the sake of seeing these literary references together, Steiny will repeat them: Shakespeare (particularly As You Like It but also Macbeth in stanza 34), the Bible (most likely the Saint James version, especially Genesis), Walt Whitman (“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”), and William Blake (“The Tyger”). Stein’s pointing to “The Tyger” appears in stanza 6, an unusually rhymed-filled stanza. Instead of a tiger, Stein gives us a snipe, which could be the long-billed bird, a (gun)shot from a concealed location, a contemptible person, or an anagram of penis.

As mentioned, “Roastbeef.” addresses the six major themes present in Tender Buttons. It occurs to Steiny that these themes— existence, appearance, gender, sexuality, morality, and union—are interrelated with existence as the first priority. Stein usually signals these themes through her word choices and by insistent repetition though the union theme seems subtler. Yes, Stein uses words like altogether in stanza 3, sets in stanza 9, collecting in stanza 22, collection in stanza 26, together in stanza 31, but predominately in “Roastbeef.” she communicates the idea of union through literary pointing. As You Like It is a play about warring family members who come to peace and marry. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” deals with the American Civil War that broke the country apart into Union and Confederacy a state of affairs that often pitted brother against brother and resulted in the assassination of the 16^th U. S. president.

By inclusion in the first and last stanzas, “The Tyger” emphasizes the word symmetry (two similar parts along a divide which work together in some way) as does Stein’s Lovely snipe and tender turn which ends on the word symmetry and exhibits the symmetry of two possible birds (snipe and tern/turn) in the first phrase marked by a comma. Stein uses punctuation—seven commas and a period—to create a symmetry (the punctuation functions as a line break might) between her prose poem and Blake’s quatrains, which have a regular rhyme scheme (AABB  CCDD, etc.). The question arises why would Stein choose Blake from whom to take inspiration over other English writers? Steiny suspect she did so because Blake wrote a series of poems called America a Prophecy that concerns the American revolution and because Blake was a multi-disciplinarian who was an accomplished visual artist using this talent to illustrate his books of poetry.

TO BE TO BE SEEN TO BE JUDGED WHO I AM WHO WE ARE

Steiny notes that Stein uses the word is, one of the markers of the existence theme, 172 times in “Roastbeef.”, not to mention lesser counts of the words are and be. More exciting to Steiny’s way of thinking is Stein’s use of the word birthday in stanza 5. Stein’s backstory is that her sister Bertha taunted her that she and Leo were replacement children after two babies preceding them died. The presumption was she would not have existed had these siblings lived. Like the good scientist and philosopher she was trained to be, Stein also examines the flip side and has substantial counts of such words as no, not, and nothing. However, overall Stein always seems to weight her words toward the positive.

Among the words that indicate appearance, Stein uses show five times in “Roastbeef.” but this is a big subject with lots of categories, such as color, dimension, clothing, quality, quantity, etc., not to mention what Stein is hiding (the sexual relationship with Toklas) which falls into the realm of keeping up appearances. For example, in stanza 19 she expresses no hope in daintiness and determination.

The theme of morality comes across strongly in the first few stanzas with words like standards, pinching, resignation, discrimination, and dirt. For example in stanza 1: All the standards have steamers and all the curtains have bed linen and all the yellow has discrimination and in stanza 3: The change the dirt, not to change dirt means that there is no beefsteak and not to have that is no obstruction, it is so easy to exchange meaning. What’s interesting is how this language of judging is mixed with joy because as this subpoem opens immense feeling associated with awakening dominates stanza 1: In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is resting, in feeling anything is mounting, in feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is recognition, in feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken there is pinching.

While the theme of gender (one’s sense of self—Stein identified herself in relation to Toklas as male) is harder to detect because Stein had so much to hide, Steiny asserts that Stein’s use of the word kind is a signpost of gender. Stanza 18 runs riot with the word kind, asserting four times (in keeping with the opening premise of the stanza about four choices) there is a kind. What follows is an assertion about bone and bones (these words are repeated seven times), which could in theory refer to the male sexual organ. The text says: There are bones and there is that consuming. The kindly way to feel separating is to have a space between. This shows a likeness. Gender identity sets one apart such that one needs space to choose it but there in resides the likeness or resemblance.

Sexuality pervades “Roastbeef.” and can be seen in the examples provided for the other major themes. A standing sexual joke between Stein and Toklas was having a cow meant having an orgasm. Where does roast beef come from? Cattle, of course. However, on a more serious note, “Roastbeef.” is Stein’s attempt to address Hamlet’s question—to be or not to be.

STEINIAN GRAMMAR AND WORD GAMES

One of Stein’s goals in writing Tender Buttons, was to revitalize the English language, such that over used words would be born anew. She placed emphasis on articles, prepositions, and conjunctions and said in "Poetry and Grammar" [from Lectures in America] articles are interesting just as nouns and adjectives are not. “She noted that articles please—‘Articles please, a and an and the please as the name that follows cannot please.’ As “Roastbeef.” opens, she uses the preposition in (10 times in stanza 1) to provide an immediacy and a lyrical intimacy that is backed up by the repetition of the article the. But this is not to say that she has written text devoid of meaning. Steiny argues here that Stein’s use of articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, which seem mostly like connecting words to the casual reader, echo what Shakespeare does throughout As You Like It. It also speaks to the way philosophers argue the essential points of their knowledge.

Word play also abounds in “Roastbeef.”. It is an interactive sport between Stein and her reader as the possibility of finding p-e-n-i-s in snipe (stanza 6) or the seabird tern versus sound-alike turn (also stanza 6). Excessive use of the “er” sound might point to the word her, as in Alice Toklas since Stein cannot name her lover. Excessive use of the article a might also point to Alice, because again Stein cannot name her partner.

GERTRUDE STEIN, AN AMERICAN WRITER

While Stein like most Americans came from immigrant stock, she set herself a task to be an American writer but one who would distinguish herself from others. In “Roastbeef.”, the characteristic turkey (stanza 28) is a North American bird and in this one sentence stanza, the turkey may be a stand-in for Stein: Bargaining for a little, bargain for a touch, a liberty, an estrangement, a characteristic turkey.

For more details and deeper understanding of this summary, read the individual blog posts on “Roastbeef.”.