Gertrude Stein: Poet, Modernist… Fascist? 

Gertrude Stein’s name echoes through the modernist canon – a self-proclaimed literary innovator, avant-garde poet and patron of the arts. She hosted salons that drew the likes of Hemingway, Picasso and Fitzgerald, and coined the term ‘Lost Generation’. Her legacy, at a glance, seems firmly entrenched in the cultural revolution of the early 20^th century. But dig beneath the surface and things quickly get deeply uncomfortable. 

Stein wasn’t just a quirky experimental writer. She was, by many accounts, a fascist sympathiser. During World War II, she openly supported the Vichy regime – the collaborationist French government that co-operated with Nazi Germany. She translated speeches by Marshal Pétain, Vichy’s authoritarian leader, into English and referred to him as “a real patriot”. 

And then there’s the incident that apologists scramble to explain: Stein once reportedly gave a Nazi salute outside Hitler’s bunker and publicly suggested that Hitler should have received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Her supporters have tried to paint this as ironic. Satirical even. Performance art. But there comes a point where irony curdles into complicity – and mass murder, to put it plainly, is not a punchline. 

So why haven’t her politics tainted her reputation in the way similar revelations have for other artists? Is it because she was a woman? A lesbian? A patron of other, now more famous (also morally dubious) artists? Or is it simply that her poetry is so impenetrable that we’ve assumed it must be genius? 

Let’s talk about the poetry. 

Stein is best known for her radical rejection of traditional syntax, rhythm, and narrative. Her work aims to deconstruct language and interrogate meaning. Admirers call it daring; critics call it nonsense. Consider this excerpt, often cited as a signature piece of Stein’s style: 

Eating is her subject. While eating is her subject. Where eating is her subject. Withdraw whether it is eating which is her subject. Literally While she ate eating is her subject. Afterwards too and in between. This is an introduction to what she ate. She ate a pigeon and a souffle. That was on one day. She ate a thin ham and its sauce. That was on another day. She ate desserts. That had been on one day… 

There’s something childlike in its repetition. Something that might be profound, if you’re in the mood to grant it depth. But there’s also something faintly ridiculous. Is this an experiment in linguistic rhythm? A feminist disruption of narrative hierarchy? Or just a menu? 

There is, of course, a place for playful, experimental language. But with Stein, one has to ask: what is left after the experiment? Is there meaning, feeling or truth beneath the repetition and dislocation? Or is it all just style without soul? 

And when that style comes wrapped in the politics of someone who stood on the wrong side of history – not by accident, but by choice – it gets harder and harder to defend. 

Stein’s defenders like to emphasise her identity: a Jewish lesbian woman living in occupied France, who somehow survived the war. But her survival may well have come not in spite of her politics, but because of them. Unlike so many others, she wasn’t silenced – she was useful. 

So here we are again, asking the same question we’ve asked about so many problematic artists: can we separate the art from the artist? 

But with Stein, maybe the better question is – was the art ever good enough to warrant the separation? 

Her legacy is built on innovation, on challenging literary conventions. But innovation alone does not make great art. Nor does shock value. And certainly not ideological betrayal. 

Gertrude Stein may have been a pioneer, but pioneers aren’t always heroes. Sometimes, they’re just the first to get somewhere no one needed to go.