historical-present tense for literature

[Jonathan Lighter]

That was certainly the explanation offered to us, if not in high school then
in freshman comp in college.  In literature (which should include drama and
cinema except for fanatics who may require a new inclusive term), the action
is "always" happening in the spooky mystical timeless way that it does.

I've always called it the historical present, but perhaps the "literary
present" is more precise.

But I wonder how and just when the style caught on. (It was so well
entrenched by the  '70s that we cynical grad students in English would roll
our eyes in disbelief when naive freshmen - most all of them, actually -
used the past tense.)   I'll read a few more reviews.

JL

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 9:21 PM, Alison Murie <sagehen7470 at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Alison Murie <sagehen7470 at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: historical-present tense for literature
>
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>
> On Feb 4, 2010, at 2:23 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      historical-present tense for literature
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > It must have been in the mid '60s when I was taught to write about
> > literature in the present tense.  E.g., "at the end of Herman
> > Melville's
> > famous novel, _Moby Dick_, Moby gets away. That is why I will never
> > go on a
> > Carnival cruise."
> >
> > While reading any number of book and film reviews in the _N.Y. Times_,
> > however, I noticed that the paper's practice, well into the 1950s at
> > least, was to write summaries in the past tense, as any normal human
> > would
> > be inclined to do. The _Times_ was not alone in this. Magill's
> > _Masterplots_
> > (not that I would know anything about that) used to do (or still
> > does) the
> > same thing.
> >
> > What caused the switch? And when did it become a must?
> > JL
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> > truth."
> >
> ~~~~~~~~~
> I was told that the use of historical-present, if that is what it is,
> was a kind of acknowledgment of the continuing life of the book, of
> literature.  Movie reviews, OTOH, under that notion,  might be
> regarded as ephemeral.....? (WAG)
> AM
>
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--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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