S. Pathak, Choice
"Superb. . . . An important work of literary criticism and intellectual history."
Review
"Superb.... An important work of literary criticism and intellectual history." -- Choice
Book Description
Gertrude Stein often called herself a genius, but what did this term really mean to her? This book examines the centrality and the specificity of the idea of "genius" to Stein's work and to the aesthetic ideals and contradictory intellectual affiliations of high modernism in general. Through a chronological reading, it maps Stein's move from an early investment in an essential notion of "genius" to her later use of the term to describe an anti-essentialist, democratic process. Drawing upon a wide range of literary theory, cultural criticism and historical evidence, and offering new readings of previously unexamined texts by Stein, Barbara Will challenges received understandings of Stein's claims to "genius" and of modernist literary hermeticism by reconceptualizing the textual practice of this exemplary modernist writer.
About the Author
Barbara Will is assistant professor of English, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.
Gertrude Stein: Modernism and the Problem of Genius ANNOTATION
A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title of the Year;
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Gertrude Stein often called herself a genius, but what did this term really mean to her? This book examines the centrality and the specificity of the idea of "genius" to Stein´s work and to the aesthetic ideals and contradictory intellectual affiliations of high modernism in general. Through a chronological reading, it maps Stein´s move from an early investment in an essential notion of "genius" to her later use of the term to describe an anti-essentialist, democratic process. Drawing upon a wide range of literary theory, cultural criticism and historical evidence, and offering new readings of previously unexamined texts by Stein, Barbara Will challenges received understandings of Stein´s claims to "genius" and of modernist literary hermeticism by reconceptualizing the textual practice of this exemplary modernist writer.
SYNOPSIS
Gertrude Stein often called herself a genius, but what did this term really mean to her? This book examines the centrality and the specificity of the idea of "genius" to Stein´s work and to the aesthetic ideals and contradictory intellectual affiliations of high modernism in general. Through a chronological reading, it maps Stein´
FROM THE CRITICS
Choice
Superb. . . . An important work of literary criticism and intellectual
history.ᄑChoice