If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1924

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

Gertrude Stein’s “If I Told Him” consists of a single, 91-line stanza. The poem’s line lengths vary wildly. Some lines, such as Lines 3 and 74, contain a single syllable. Other lines, such as Lines 12 and 41, contain over 50 words. These massive inconsistencies from line to line means that the poem does not follow any clear metrical pattern. Instead, the poem shifts form line to line as new thoughts occur to the speaker. Considering the poem’s non-hierarchical approach (See: Poem Analysis), each line is best understood as an individual unit no more or less important than any other. The resulting effect means that the poem’s lines co-exist in a collage rather than in a linear procession.

“If I Told Him” is technically in free verse, an open form of poetry that does not organize itself through meter or rhyme. Stein’s approach, however, is highly idiosyncratic and also removes itself form the speech or grammatical patterns that often help to structure free verse. Instead, the poem is structured around a series of repetitions and variations instead of an established form and meter. The focus of these gnomic repetitions slowly morphs from line to line, giving the work a sense of progress or movement that would otherwise come from grammatical or logical connections.

Juxtaposition

Rather than use linear narratives and sentence structures, Stein’s “If I Told Him” creates meaning through a series of juxtapositions. Juxtaposition is the act of placing two words, objects, or elements in close proximity as a way of emphasizing their similarities and differences. Stein’s non-hierarchical approach heightens the power and potential of juxtapositions between individual words. All of the poem’s lines co-exist at the same level, making the poem more like the visual arts that influenced it. Like in a painting, everything in “If I Told Him” hits at once, and everything within the frame is juxtaposed with everything else.

Stein uses this juxtaposition in two unique ways. Most frequently, she uses it in combination with repetition in a single line to draw all possible meanings from a particular set of words. Line 13 and its powerful meditation on the relationship between resemblances and representation (See: Symbols & Motifs) is a strong example of this first use of juxtaposition. The second main type of juxtaposition exists on a higher, conceptual level. With the contextual understanding that “If I Told Him” attempts to describe Picasso, every element of the poem is in constant juxtaposition with the actual Picasso.

Repetition

Stein is a master of repetition and uses it to its full potential in “If I Told Him.” Repetition provides the primary structure of the poem through the use of repeated refrains and ideas that flow into one another. Repetition also does the poem’s most significant rhetorical work. Repetition is so important in “If I Told Him” that the speaker instructs the reader to “actively repeat” (Line 14).

Stein takes advantage of a long rhetorical tradition of repetition. In fact, the poem’s momentum relies on ploce, or the repetition of a word with fresh meaning based on the intervening words. Nearly every instance of repetition in “If I Told Him” takes advantage of these new meanings to create small and interesting shifts within lines. The line “I judge judge” (Line 16) is a strong example of how a word can change from a verb to a noun in quick succession. This same line is also an example of antistasis, a related technique that repeats words in different or contrary senses. Another example of antistasis and ploce is when the speaker plays with the meaning of the word “first” in “Who came first Napoleon at first. Who came first Napoleon the first” (Line 21).

Stein also frequently uses epizeuxis, or the repetition of a phrase in immediate succession with the aim of emphasizing the phrase. The line that begins “Exact resemblance to exact resemblance the exact resemblance as exact resemblance” (Line 13) uses epizeuxis to focus on one of the poem’s main themes.