Kirwan, Peter. (2010) “What's past is prologue” : negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare. Shakespeare, Vol.6 (No.3). pp. 337-342. ISSN 1745-0918

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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
Volume:	Vol.6
Number:	No.3
Number of Pages:	6
Page Range:	pp. 337-342
Identification Number:	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
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/5288

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