The Tender Being of Something Else: Geography and Lists in Gertrude Steinâs Ida

Laura Oulanne

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Chapter 5 The Tender Being of Something Else: Geography and Lists in Gertrude Steinâs Ida

äºModernism beyond the Human

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Laura Oulanne

Laura Oulanne
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Page Range:: 111â132

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004549685_007

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Abstract

Gertrude Steinâs novel Ida (1941) disrupts the format of a life story by digressions into lists that convey general geographical information of the United States. The places and environments listed in the text do not remain the static background of human action: they evoke experiences independently of the human characters and invite the reader to play with them. The variations of the list form in which the environmental information is presented work as potential distractions, self-reflective reminders of the textuality of the work, and evocations of plurality and alterity in contrast with the identity and subjectivity implied by the topic of the novel.

My essay suggests that a post-anthropocentric reading of Ida, combined with a detailed formal analysis, opens up a new possibility of examining the quintessentially modernist question of the subject. By examining the textual devices with which the novel achieves its escape from biography into geography, the analysis reveals the role of place and environment in the construction and deconstruction of the subject. On the other hand, this reading of Steinâs work sheds new light on the posthumanist discussions of the poetics and politics of lists, proposing a fluid vision of impersonal being which centers around neither subjects nor objects.

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Modernism beyond the Human

Transnational Perspectives

ä¸ç¼ï¼ Critical Posthumanisms, å·ï¼ 4

ISBN:: 9789004549685

åºçç¤¾:: Brill

å°å·åºçæ¥æ:: 29 Sep 2023

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

Front Matter

Part 1 Modernism and the Nonhuman

Part 2 Modernist Animals

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Chapter 5 The Tender Being of Something Else: Geography and Lists in Gertrude Steinâs Ida

Abstract

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