Okay, we're going to look at, A Long Dress which is one of the objects in Gertrude Stein's famous work, Tender Buttons. Alright. How comfortable are you Emily with things that don't seem to mean easily. >> I guess I'll find out. >> Oh, you will? That's a very politician like response. Molly typically in your life, how comfortable are you when you see something that, when you read something that is seemingly incomprehensible? >> Not at all. >> You're not at all comfortable? This is. So what's the word pushing you out of your comfort zone? >> Yes. >> Okay. A Long Dress. This is actually in your comfort zone. A Long Dress. >> [laugh] >> So in the first line we have the word, current. What is the current that makes machinery? Okay? Okay. Anna? Current, what could current be? >> We've seen this word in this course. >> Seen this word. Current could be. Electricity. >> Mm-hm. >> Current could be like the power of water. >> Or anything that pushes along. >> Current could be. >> Kind of a, has an inevitability, an inexorability about it. Keep going. >> Current could be like a kind of weave of salon. >> Okay, that's a hard one. Very unusual. You're like a walking LED. Can you do the fourth one? Anybody, a fourth connotation that's probably a little easier than the third one. Molly? >> The contemporary? >> The contemporary, as current, current as in currency. And I gave away the fifth. Currency. We think of currency as value. Yeah? So, currency as in dollars and coins, value. So current is a relative of that. Okay. So that's good we've got current. What is the current that makes machinery. What does this have to do with A Long Dress. This is her, an object. Amaris? >> Well I read it metapoetically so I saw that current. >> Already? Okay. That's fine. >> I mean. Yes, because it's talking about a dress and then it goes to a current. [laugh]. >> Can we, can we? >>, Hold off on the metapoetic just? >> Sure. >> A little? >> Sure. >> Be a little more literal? >> Sure. >> You know, Gertrude Stein. >> Oh it's a domestic object. >> Because. >> It's fine then. >> No, because if you're uncomfortable you know, as Molly admitted she is, with things that don't make sense and you're armed with the idea of meta-poetry, then you can get away with close, you can get away from close reading. >> Mm-hm. You know Margaret Perlof who is really good on Gertrude Stein has taught me over the years that we shouldn't shy away from trying to do close readings of poems that don't seem to make sense at all. I'm not saying that you are. That's a characteristic view. >> Mm-hm. >> But I do think it is a little easy to jump to the meta-poetic right away. So I invite you to be a little more. >> Okay. >> Literal isn't quite the right word, but grappling with the words and phrases. >> Alright. So, the presents a long line in necessary waist could reference the title in that a dress. >> Waist. As in waist, waistline? >> A dress has a circumference, a style, a form, it implies constraint. >> It changes with the times in fashion but not necessarily in the gender relations that it limits people too. >> Cool. Great. Ally, what does it mean in the context of a poem called, A Long Dress or in the context of the making of A Long Dress. To ask what is this current? What are some paraphrasing of that? >> Not quite question because she doesn't put a question mark after it. >> Well I mean immediately I just kind of think of the way that the dress might flow. >> Flow, current is flow. Wow, that's a second level answer. Is there a simple, simpler one? Max, you know a lot about fashion [laugh]. >> Well if we, we generated some meanings already for current. The, the, the electricity connotation of course works with machinery if we think of, of a sewing machine. >> Paraphrase the question. What is this current? >> Well, it's, it could, it could either be an electric current, or it could also be ... >> So ask a question. What is this, what's she saying in effect? What is this, electricity? >> What is, what is this, I mean it, it seems to be modern because if we think of electricity and sewing machine that's modern and so is so is the idea of fashion and if. >> Huh currency. >> If we are back to the [crosstalk] the contemporary association with current, then this sort of work hand in hand and we see cope, this, the, the making of this dress actually with the sewing machine and also ... >> Mm-hm. >> The making of this dress. >> [crosstalk] >> Did you just say the making of this dress? >> Yes, I mean if we think of that Stein is being. >> If you think of Stein as being. >> Interested in [laugh] interested in, in the composition of objects to the creation of objects, then we have a very literal creation of this stress. >> And she's interested in the conditions, linguistic and otherwise, which give rise to an object. Which is to say, a linguistic, language-based understanding of the way our world, the way we see things in the world. What better way than to consider a long dress with its, in fashion, with its relevance to currency? I don't know enough about the history of fashion, to know if in 1913, 1914, a long dress is maybe just a little bit not current, or maybe in fact quite current. I don't, I haven't seen a photograph of, Gertrude Stein wearing a short dress. >> [laugh] >> Not that I'd want this to be autobiographical in the least. But, she's considering the currency of a long dress. And so the conditions of manufacture what is the current that makes this machinery. What kind of question is that if you're a you're a Dave you be our Marxist for a second. If it's the teens and we're producing clothing. This is prior to the is it the Shirtways factory fire? >> No. >> Would that be relevant? That's later. Maybe. I think it is later. But this is a time in which the making of these dresses is really, a consideration. Not necessarily for people of Stein's sensibility, experience, or even ideology, but it is certainly in the air for an intellectual. Dave, you want to run with that? I bought you a little time. >> [laugh]. Sure. I would just say that, that the gears of this machinery are oiled with the blood of our brother and sister proletarians [crosstalk]. Remember? >> [laugh]. You would just say that. The condition, the conditions, the conditions of manufacture. Here's my Marxist paraphrase of the poem. And I don't mean that that's. I don't mean this, necessarily. The conditions of manufacture must be disclosed. If a full complete depiction of fashion is to be truly realistic or realist. How do you like that? All right, so the long line is, what are some options for the long line? We can go to meta-poetic in a second, Amaris. But, long line. Anybody? >> The long line of the dress. >> The long line as in the style of the dress, keep going. >> The kind of vertical integration of making. >> Vertical integration, that's a fancy word. But what about the line the. >> That. >> Assem, assembly line, the manufacture line, the long line, is a really long line. There's the long, disclosed, to be disclosed history. If you really want to. So now let's do the meta-poetic analogy because I don't think ultimately Stein is primarily interested in the disclosing the conditions of manufacture. But she could be interested in disclosing the conditions of manufacture of meaning. >> Exactly. >> Go for it. >>, You're on. >> Oh, well, the way I interpreted it was that the current is some motion or the movement of meaning that brings a sentence to life. And I said, I read that in terms of sound and in terms of meaning because she says that makes it crack, that makes it crackle. And it seems that language in its current form has limitations, unnecessary waste alludes to that, and she's trying to get outside those limitations into a language that is free, perhaps of a long line of tradition that she alludes to in the first. >> A long line of tradition. What about these long lines? >> Well, they. >> It's a prose poem, which we always thought, think of as a poem. >> Uh-huh. >> But it's questioning. The lines are of different length. What is this current does not end with as it normally with, with a question mark. So the punctuation is questionable as well. >> Terrific. Let's, let's conclude. We haven't done, we haven't done a full reading of this, prose poem. But, fine. Let's, there's much more that can be said. But let's conclude by spend, spending a little more time on the long line of this prose poem. What does the phrase mean in terms of the form of this poem? Or of any of the tender buttons? Just start us off. I don't expect a brilliant thing to start with. Anna? Take a shot. >> Well for me, the, the long line is pretty is pretty self referential. And then if you look down, like we have the long line that kind of first, I guess we can call that a stanza. And then if you look down, a line distinguishes it, a line just distinguishes it. >> A line distinguishes it. A line just distinguishes it. What does that do? >> Well so, we're think, kind of metapoetically, one of the main distinguishing features of verse, verses prose is that verse is broken into lines. >> Yes. >> And maybe shorter lines. >> A line distinguishes it, and that's so nice. Ron Silliman much later in our course in chapter nine is going to talk about the new sentence, and a lot of his, according to George Hartley and a couple other people who've thought about this lineage, this line, the line, the new sentence begins with Gertrude Stein who focuses on sentence as a unit of meaning, as opposed to the verse line. So a line distinguishes it. It being not poetry overall but this poetry. That's really terrific. So, you know, the tender buttons are really urgent referentiality. She wants to refer. She just doesn't want to do representational work, necessarily, in a traditional sense, but she wants reference. So, we would be fine talking about this as a long dress. But we are also meant to think of the conditions that are essentially based on linguistic assumptions and other assumptions that keeps behind the scenes the machinery that creates the dress. And takes loveliness, serene loveliness as the product but doesn't look under the hood. And we need to do the same with language. It's a radical project. And it gets pass imagism because it's not just interested in the presentation of the image. But in fact that a whole history in the way in which the image got constructed
