Makings of Americans: Whitman and Stein’s Poetics of Inclusion

F her initial reception as a writer , Gertrude Stein has been consistently understood as an oppositional figure—a “country of her own,” as even her friends regarded her—and the vast majority of readers have continued to reinforce the borders (When This You See). Of course Stein herself was the first and most powerful fortifier of her provisional singularity. She stalwartly refused to recognize literary peers, admitting comparison only to figures important to other areas of artistic and intellectual endeavor.1 Furthermore, in regard to the majority of her most likely literary forebears, such as Henry James, she created elaborate smokescreens often involving some highly suspect claims.2 One result of Stein’s formidable skills at self-promotion is that although much has been written about Stein’s difference from other writers, even Stein’s most deft and serious readers continue to isolate her in ways that obscure some of her most important literary relationships. Susan M. Schultz, for example, claims that “Stein defies the attempts we make at describing her career historically” (71), and while other of Stein’s readers have sought more nuanced descriptions of her relation to literary tradition, even the most thorough tend to work in ways that preserve for Stein an idealized autonomy from her peers and antecedents.3 The move to isolate Stein probably served a useful function at one time. It helped to focus attention away from previous readers’ tendencies to see her as a “literary figure,” crucial to others, rather than as an important writer whose own works deserve attention. With Stein’s reputation now firmly established, it seems more useful to emphasize how her writings can be enriched and not assimilated by interpretation against the background of literary traditions. One such context is the “men of