Ecritures (3) Gertrude Stein's "Life in the City of Words"

Gertrude Stein by  Carl Van Vechten

Gertrude Stein by Cecil Beaton

Cecil Beaton - Gertrude Stein ; Alice B. Toklas, 1936 - Bromure, 24 x 23,7 cm  Londres, National Portrait Gallery  © Courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s 

"For me the work of Gertrude Stein consists in a rebuilding, an entirely new recasting of life, in the city of words." Sherwood Anderson

"And now what does a comma do and what has it to do 

and why do I feel as I do about them.

What does a comma do.

I have refused them so often and left them out so much and did

without them so continually that I have come finally to be indifferent 

to them. I do not now care whether you put them in or not but for a 

long time I felt very definitely about them and would have nothing to 

do with them.

As I say commas are servile and they have no life of their own, and 

their use is not a use, it is a way of replacing one’s own interest and I 

do decidedly like to like my own interest my own interest in what I am 

doing. A comma by helping you along holding your coat for you and 

putting on your shoes keeps you from living your life as actively as 

you should lead it and to me for many years and I still do feel that was about 

it only 

now I do not pay as much attention to them, the use of 

them was positively degrading. Let me tell you what I feel and what I 

mean and what I felt and what I meant." 

Extract from Gertrude Stein on Punctuation, 

Lectures In America, Beacon Press, Boston, 1985, pages 214-222. Originally published in 1935 by The Modern Library, Inc.