{"title":"Reading Gertrude Stein for Pleasure: Finding the “Mere Humor” in “High Modernism”","authors":"Sarah Shermyen","doi":"10.5325/studamerhumor.9.2.0211","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:High modernist poetry, particularly Gertrude Stein’s 1923 poem “If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso,” is often considered impenetrable and distinct from Stein’s more clearly humorous prose work. However, the poem invites us to laugh at the chaos of our world through the chaos and instability of language. This article explores the poem’s humor and the possibilities for pleasure it offers through the rhythm of repetition. Stein’s playfulness points to an oft-overlooked aspect of high modernism: its appeal to our most visceral selves.","PeriodicalId":53944,"journal":{"name":"Studies in American Humor","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Studies in American Humor","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5325/studamerhumor.9.2.0211","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT:High modernist poetry, particularly Gertrude Stein’s 1923 poem “If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso,” is often considered impenetrable and distinct from Stein’s more clearly humorous prose work. However, the poem invites us to laugh at the chaos of our world through the chaos and instability of language. This article explores the poem’s humor and the possibilities for pleasure it offers through the rhythm of repetition. Stein’s playfulness points to an oft-overlooked aspect of high modernism: its appeal to our most visceral selves.
期刊介绍:
Welcome to the home of Studies in American Humor, the journal of the American Humor Studies Association. Founded by the American Humor Studies Association in 1974 and published continuously since 1982, StAH specializes in humanistic research on humor in America (loosely defined) because the universal human capacity for humor is always expressed within the specific contexts of time, place, and audience that research methods in the humanities strive to address. Such methods now extend well beyond the literary and film analyses that once formed the core of American humor scholarship to a wide range of critical, biographical, historical, theoretical, archival, ethnographic, and digital studies of humor in performance and public life as well as in print and other media. StAH’s expanded editorial board of specialists marks that growth. On behalf of the editorial board, I invite scholars across the humanities to submit their best work on topics in American humor and join us in advancing knowledge in the field.