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“What's past is prologue” : negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare
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Kirwan, Peter (2010) “What's past is prologue” : negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare. Shakespeare, Vol.6 (No.3). pp. 337-342. doi:10.1080/17450918.2010.497856
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2010.497856
Abstract
This paper, rooted in reviewing practice, engages with a little-discussed practical aspect of reviewing: the tense in which a theatre review is written. Noting that journalistic reviews use the present tense, whereas academic reviews use the past, this paper asks when a review moves into the past, and what implications the use of tense has for the review. The paper contends that the two tenses confer different kinds of authority on a review, which in turn have implications for positioning the object of review and the reviewer in relation to one another. Distinctions are made between reviewing a production or a single performance; between reviewing as a promise or as an archive; and between the omnipotent narrator and subjective spectator. The paper concludes that, in an age of increasingly cheap opinion, the past tense may be appropriated as a means for professional reviewers in all disciplines to consolidate the specificity of their reviewing authority.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater P Language and Literature > PR English literature |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > English and Comparative Literary Studies | ||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Theater -- Reviews, Theater -- Reviews -- Language, Grammar, Comparative and general -- Tense, Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Reviews | ||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Shakespeare | ||||
| Publisher: | Routledge | ||||
| ISSN: | 1745-0918 | ||||
| Official Date: | 2010 | ||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | Vol.6 | ||||
| Number: | No.3 | ||||
| Number of Pages: | 6 | ||||
| Page Range: | pp. 337-342 | ||||
| DOI: | 10.1080/17450918.2010.497856 | ||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||
| Description: | Special Issue: Reviewing Shakespearean theatre: the state of the art |
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