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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

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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
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
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:
DateEvent
2010Published
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

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

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