Tender Buttons [A Long Dress]

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1914

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

As a text, “A Long Dress” cannot be definitively placed into either category of prose or poetry. While it is perhaps best read as a prose poem, the “prose” of a “A Long Dress” does not proceed in a fashion generally expected from prose. Instead, the work plays with syntax and diction in distinctly poetic ways. As a prose poem, then, the text is not regulated by any regular meter or rhythm, does not follow any traditional poetic structure, and does not rhyme. As a poem in prose, the text does not even have lines. It is only for convenience that this guide cites the poem by “lines,” or, by each sentence within the poem that ends with a period.

Syntax and Grammar

Syntactical play is the bread and butter of Tender Buttons, and “A Long Dress” is no exception. Parts of speech are swapped, as with the reading of “What” (Line 1) as a noun-subject in itself, and small words are given grammatical importance they would not normally receive, as with the “it” both of the second and third paragraphs.

Stein also uses syntax to create dynamic pacing in the poem. Short sentences like “What is this current” (Line 2) and “A line distinguishes it” (Line 5) are placed alongside blatant run-on sentences, like the long thread of clauses and colors connected by a series of “ands” and commas, beginning with “Where is the serene length” (Line 4). This contrast varies the pace and form of the prose poem.

Stein also draws attention to the importance of words that, without normative context, would not normally receive strong emphasis. The repetition of the final two sentences with only the addition of the word “just” (Line 6) in the second instance highlights the importance of grammar and its small words. That it is unclear to what exactly the “just” refers allows its disembodied existence to illustrate the power of grammar to shift definition, perception, and experience.