The radically experimental language of Gertrude Stein in Tender Buttons (1914) has often been explained as fragmented from a Cubist point of view or associated with Postmodern indeterminacy. While there are elements of fragmentation or indeterminacy present in Tender Buttons, these two frameworks have the danger to either search for a unified meaning or conclude that no meaning can be found in the playful language of Stein. Drawing upon philosophical writings of Bergson, this article aims to revise Cubist and Postmodern understandings of Stein by examining how Stein’s arbitrary juxtapositions create new relationships among already known images through a poetics of suggestion, ever-reaching without arriving, thus expanding the boundary and potential of each word and their relational existences.
Ⅰ. Introduction
Ⅱ. Beyond the Nonsensical and the Abstract
Ⅲ. “System to Pointing”: Towards a Poetics of Suggestion
Ⅳ. Conclusion
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