\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\input ../header.tex

\lfoot{{\em Composition as Explanation}}%% assume fancyheaders package loaded
\rfoot{Gertrude Stein}

\begin{document}
\begin{center}
\section*{Composition as Explanation\\
Gertrude Stein}
\end{center}


\begin{quote}
First delivered by the author as a lecture at Cambridge and Oxford,
this essay was first published by the Hogarth Press in London in 1926
and revived in the volume called {\em What Are Masterpieces}. 
\end{quote}

%%This is one of
%%many attempts Miss Stein has made to explain her "difficult" manner of
%%writing. Others are sections of THE MAKING OF AMERICANS, some of which
%%are included in this Collection, HOW TO WRITE, LECTURES IN AMERICA,
%%NARRATION, THE GEOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF AMERICA OR THE RELATION OF HUMAN
%%NATURE TO THE HUMAN MIND, WHAT ARE MASTERPIECES, AN ACQUAINTANCE WITH
%%DESCRIPTION, and the most "difficult" of her explanations, AN
%%ELUCIDATION, in PORTRAITS AND PRAYERS. It readily can be seen that Miss
%%Stein devoted almost as much time to exegesis as to creation.
%%\end{quote}


There is singularly nothing that makes a difference a difference 
in beginning and
in the middle and in ending except that each generation has something
different at which they are all looking. By this I mean so simply that
anybody knows it that composition is the difference which makes each and
all of them then different from other generations and this is what makes
everything different otherwise they are all alike and everybody knows it
because everybody says it.

It is very likely that nearly every one has been very nearly certain
that something that is interesting is interesting them. Can they and do
they. It is very interesting that nothing inside in them, that is when
you consider the very long history of how every one ever acted or has
felt, it is very interesting that nothing inside in them in all of them
makes it connectedly different. By this I mean this. The only thing that
is different from one time to another is what is seen and what is seen
depends upon how everybody is doing everything. This makes the thing we
are looking at very different and this makes what those who describe it
make of it, it makes a composition, it confuses, it shows, it is, it
looks, it likes it as it is, and this makes what is seen as it is seen.
Nothing changes from generation to generation except the thing seen and
that makes a composition. Lord Grey remarked that when the generals
before the war talked about the war they talked about it as a nineteenth
century war although to be fought with twentieth century weapons. That
is because war is a thing that decides how it is to be when it is to be
done. It is prepared and to that degree it is like all academies it is
not a thing made by being made it is a thing prepared. Writing and
painting and all that, is like that, for those who occupy themselves
with it and don't make it as it is made. Now the few who make it as it
is made, and it is to be remarked that the most decided of them usually
are prepared just as the world around them is preparing, do it in this
way and so I if you do not mind I will tell you how it happens.
Naturally one does not know how it happened until it is well over
beginning happening.

To come back to the part that the only thing that is different is what
is seen when it seems to be being seen, in other words, composition and
time-sense.

No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of
creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who also are
creating their own time refuse to accept. And they refuse to accept it
for a very simple reason and that is that they do not have to accept it
for any reason. They themselves that is everybody in their entering the
modern composition and they do enter it, if they do not enter it they
are not so to speak in it they are out of it and so they do enter it;
but in as you may say the non-competitive efforts where if you are not
in it nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had,
there are naturally all the refusals, and the things refused are only
important if unexpectedly somebody happens to need them. In the case of
the arts it is very definite. Those who are creating the modern
composition authentically are naturally only of importance when they are
dead because by that time the modern composition having become past is
classified and the description of it is classical. That is the reason
why the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he
is a classic, there is hardly a moment in between and it is really too
bad very much too bad naturally for the creator but also very much too
bad for the enjoyer, they all really would enjoy the created so much
better just after it has been made than when it is already a classic,
but it is perfectly simple that there is no reason why the
contemporaries should see, because it would not make any difference as
they lead their
lives in the new composition anyway, and as every one is naturally
indolent why naturally they don't see. For this reason as in quoting
Lord Grey it is quite certain that nations not actively threatened are
at least several generations behind themselves militarily so
aesthetically they are more than several generations behind themselves
and it is very much too bad, it is so very much more exciting and
satisfactory for everybody if one can have contemporaries, if all one's
contemporaries could be one's contemporaries.

There is almost not an interval.

For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause
almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and
literature the rapidity of the change is always startling. Now the only
difficulty with the {\em volte-face} concerning the arts is this. When the
acceptance comes, by that acceptance the thing created becomes a
classic. It is a natural phenomena a rather extraordinary natural
phenomena that a thing accepted becomes a classic. And what is the
characteristic quality of a classic. The characteristic quality of a
classic is that it is beautiful. Now of course it is perfectly true that
a more or less first rate work of art is beautiful but the trouble is
that when that first rate work of art becomes a classic because it is
accepted the only thing that is important from then on to the majority
of the acceptors the enormous majority, the most intelligent majority of
the acceptors is that it is so wonderfully beautiful. Of course it is
wonderfully beautiful, only when it is still a thing irritating annoying
stimulating then all quality of beauty is denied to it.

Of course it is beautiful but first all beauty in it is denied and then
all the beauty of it is accepted. If every one were not so indolent they
would realise that beauty is beauty even when it is irritating and
stimulating not only when it is accepted and classic. Of course it is
extremely difficult nothing more so than to remember back to its not
being beautiful once it has become beautiful. This makes it so much more
difficult to realise its beauty when the work is being refused and
prevents every one from realising that they were convinced that beauty
was denied, once the work is accepted. Automatically with the acceptance
of the time-sense comes the recognition of the beauty and once the
beauty is accepted the beauty never fails any one.

Beginning again and again is a natural thing even when there is a series.

Beginning again and again and again explaining composition and time is a
natural thing.

It is understood by this time that everything is the same except
composition and time, composition and the time of the composition and
the time in the composition.

Everything is the same except composition and as the composition is
different and always going to be different everything is not the same.
Everything is not the same as the time when of the composition and the
time in the composition is different. The composition is different, that
is certain.

The composition is the thing seen by every one living in the living they
are doing, they are the composing of the composition that at the time
they are living in the composition of the time in which they are living.
It is that that makes living a thing they are doing. Nothing else is
different, of that almost any one can be certain. The time when and the
time of and the time in that composition is the natural phenomena of
that composition and of that perhaps every one can be certain.

No one thinks these things when they are making when they are creating
what is the composition, naturally no one thinks, that is no one
formulates until what is to be formulated has been made.

Composition is not there, it is going to be there and we are here. This
is some time ago for us naturally.

The only thing that is different from one time to another is what is
seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything.
This makes the thing we are looking at very different and this makes
what those who describe it make of it, it makes a composition, it
confuses, it shows, it is, it looks, it likes it as it is, and this
makes what is seen as it is seen. Nothing changes from generation to
generation except the thing seen and that makes a composition.

Now the few who make writing as it is made and it is to be remarked that
the most decided of them are those that are prepared by preparing, are
prepared just as the world around them is prepared and is preparing to
do it in this way and so if you do not mind I will again tell you how it
happens. Naturally one does not know how it happened until it is well
over beginning happening.

Each period of living differs from any other period of living not in the
way life is but in the way life is conducted and that authentically
speaking is composition. After life has been conducted in a certain way
everybody knows it but nobody knows it, little by little, nobody knows
it as long as nobody knows it. Any one creating the composition in the
arts does not know it either, they are conducting life and that makes
their composition what it is, it makes their work compose as it does.

Their influence and their influences are the same as that of all of
their contemporaries only it must always be remembered that the analogy
is not obvious until as I say the composition of a time has become so
pronounced that it is past and the artistic composition of it is a classic.

And now to begin as if to begin. Composition is not there, it is going
to be there and we are here. This is some time ago for us naturally.
There is something to be added afterwards.

Just how much my work is known to you I do not know. I feel that perhaps
it would be just as well to tell the whole of it.

In beginning writing I wrote a book called Three Lives this was written
in 1905. 1 wrote a negro story called Melanctha. In that there was a
constant recurring and beginning there was a marked direction in the
direction of being in the present although naturally I had been
accustomed to past present and future, and why, because the composition
forming around me was a prolonged present. A composition of a prolonged
present is a natural composition in the world as it has been these
thirty years it was more and more a prolonged present. I created then a
prolonged present naturally I knew nothing of a continuous present but
it came naturally to me to make one, it was simple it was clear to me
and nobody knew why it was done like that I did not myself although
naturally to me it was natural.

After that I did a book called The Making of Americans it is a long book
about a thousand pages.

Here again it was all so natural to me and more and more complicatedly a
continuous present. A continuous present is a continuous present. I made
almost a thousand pages of a continuous present.

Continuous present is one thing and beginning again and again is another
thing. These are both things. And then there is using everything.

This brings us again to composition this the using everything. The using
everything brings us to composition and to this composition. A
continuous present and using everything and beginning again. In these
two books there was elaboration of the complexities of using everything
and of a continuous present and of beginning again and again and again.

In the first book there was a groping for a continuous present and for
using everything by beginning again and again.

There was a groping for using everything and there was a groping for a
continuous present and there was an inevitable beginning of beginning
again and again and again.

Having naturally done this I naturally was a little troubled with it
when I read it. I became then like the others who read it. One does, you
know, excepting that when I reread it myself I lost myself in it again.
Then I said to myself this time it will be different and I began. I did
not begin again I just began.

In this beginning naturally since I at once went on and on very soon
there were pages and pages and pages more and more elaborated creating a
more and more continuous present including more and more using of
everything and continuing more and more beginning and beginning and
beginning.

I went on and on to a thousand pages of it.

In the meantime to naturally begin I commenced making portraits of
anybody and anything. In making these portraits I naturally made a
continuous present an including everything and a beginning again and
again within a very small thing. That started me into composing anything
into one thing. So then naturally it was natural that one thing an
enormously long thing was not everything an enormously short thing was
also not everything nor was it all of it a continuous present thing nor
was it always and always beginning again. Naturally I would then begin
again. I would begin again I would naturally begin. I did naturally
begin. This brings me to a great deal that has been begun.

And after that what changes what changes after that, after that what
changes and what changes after that and after that and what changes and
after that and what changes after that.

The problem from this time on became more definite.

It was all so nearly alike it must be different and it is different, it
is natural that if everything is used and there is a continuous present
and a beginning again and again if it is all so alike it must be simply
different and everything simply different was the natural way of
creating it then.

In this natural way of creating it then that it was simply different
everything being alike it was simply different, this kept on leading one
to lists. Lists naturally for a while and by lists I mean a series. More
and more in going back over what was done at this time I find that I
naturally kept simply different as an intention. Whether there was or
whether there was not a continuous present did not then any longer
trouble me there was or there was not, and using everything no longer
troubled me if everything is alike using everything could no longer
trouble me and beginning again and again could no longer trouble me
because if lists were inevitable if series were inevitable and the whole
of it was inevitable beginning again and again could not trouble me so
then with nothing to trouble me I very completely began naturally since
everything is alike making it as simply different naturally as simply
different as possible. I began doing natural phenomena what I call
natural phenomena and natural phenomena naturally everything being alike
natural phenomena are making things be naturally simply different. This
found Its culmination later, in the beginning it began in a center
confused with lists with series with geography with returning portraits
and with particularly often four and three and often with five and four.
It is easy to see that in the beginning such a conception as everything
being naturally different would be very inarticulate and very slowly it
began to emerge and take form of anything, and then naturally if
anything that is simply different is simply different what follows will
follow.

So far then the progress of my conceptions was the natural progress
entirely in accordance with my epoch as I am sure is to be quite easily
realised if you think over the scene that was before us all from year to
year.

As I said in the beginning, there is the long history of how every one
ever acted or has felt and that nothing inside in them in all of them
makes it connectedly different. By this I mean all this.

The only thing that is different from one time to another is what is
seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything.

It is understood by this time that everything is the same except
composition and time, composition and the time of the composition and
the time in the composition.

Everything is the same except composition and as the composition is
different and always going to be different everything is not the same.
So then I as a contemporary creating the composition in the beginning
was groping toward a continuous present, a using everything a beginning
again and again and then everything being alike then everything very
simply everything was naturally simply different and so I as a
contemporary was creating everything being alike was creating everything
naturally being naturally simply different, everything being alike. This
then was the period that brings me to the period of the beginning of
1914. Everything being alike everything naturally would be simply
different and war came and everything being alike and everything being
simply different brings everything being simply different brings it to
romanticism.

Romanticism is then when everything being alike everything is naturally
simply different, and romanticism.

Then for four years this was more and more different even though this
was, was everything alike. Everything alike naturally everything was
simply different and this is and was romanticism and this is and was
war. Everything being alike everything naturally everything is different
simply different naturally simply different.

And so there was the natural phenomena that was war, which had been,
before war came, several generations behind the contemporary
composition, because it became war and so completely needed to be
contemporary became completely contemporary and so created the completed
recognition of the contemporary composition. Every one but one may say
every one became consciously became aware of the existence of the
authenticity of the modern composition. This then the contemporary
recognition, because of the academic thing known as war having been
forced to become contemporary made every one not only contemporary in
act not only contemporary in thought but contemporary in
self-consciousness made every one contemporary with the modem
composition. And so the art creation of the contemporary composition
which would have been outlawed normally outlawed several generations
more behind even than war, war having been brought so to speak up to
date art so to speak was allowed not completely to be up to date, but
nearly up to date, in other words we who created the expression of the
modem composition were to be recognized before we were dead some of us
even quite a long time before we were dead. And so war may be said to
have advanced a general recognition of the expression of the
contemporary composition by almost thirty years.

And now after that there is no more of that in other words there is
peace and something comes then and it follows coming then.

And so now one finds oneself interesting oneself in an equilibration,
that of course means words as well as things and distribution as well as
between themselves between the words and themselves and the things and
themselves, a distribution as distribution. This makes what follows what
follows and now there is every reason why there should be an arrangement
made. Distribution is interesting and equilibration is interesting when
a continuous present and a be. ginning again and again and using
everything and everything alike and everything naturally simply
different has been done.

After all this, there is that, there has been that that there, is a
composition and that nothing changes except composition the composition
and the time of and the time in the composition.

The time of the composition is a natural thing and the time in the
composition is a natural thing it is a natural thing and it is a
contemporary thing.

The time of the composition is the time of the composition. It has been
at times a present thing it has been at times a past thing it has been
at times a future thing it has been at times an endeavour at parts or
all of these things. In my beginning it was a continuous present a
beginning again and again and again and again, it 'was a series it was a
list it was a similarity and everything different it was a distribution
and an equilibration. That is all of the time some of the time of the
composition.

Now there is still something else the time-sense in the composition.
This is what is always a fear a doubt and a judgement and a conviction.
The quality in the creation of expression the quality in a composition
that makes it go dead just after it has been made is very troublesome.

The time in the composition is a thing that is very troublesome. If the
time in the composition is very troublesome it is because there must
even if there is no time at all in the composition there must be time in
the composition which is in its quality of distribution and
equilibration. In the beginning there was the time in the composition
that naturally was in the composition but time in the composition comes
now and this is what is now troubling every one the time in the
composition is now a part of distribution and equilibration. In the
beginning there was confusion there was a continuous present and later
there was romanticism which was not a confusion but an extrication and
now there is either succeeding or failing there must be distribution and
equilibration there must be time that is distributed and equilibrated.
This is the thing that is at present the most troubling and if there is
the time that is at present the most troublesome the time-sense that is
at present the most troubling is the thing that makes the present the
most troubling. There is at present there is distribution, by this I
mean expression and time, and in this way at present composition is time
that is the reason that at present the time-sense is troubling that is
the reason why at present the time-sense in the composition is the
composition that is making what there is in composition.

And afterwards.

Now that is all.


\end{document}