In August last year a Forum member asked me if history can be narrated in the present tense. I replied that professional historians write history in the past tense as a matter of course, for historical accounts would sound so contrived and tacky if told in the present tense on a sustained basis.
Imagine how confusing it would be to listen to Italian history narrated in the present tense from start to finish this way: “Machiavelli
falls out of favor when the Medici princes
return to power and
he is imprisoned on suspicion of crimes against the state…”
So if at all, a respectable historian resists the temptation to use the historical present for novelty’s sake, sometimes taking recourse to it on TV only to summarize what he or she has already narrated in the past tense.
IMAGE CREDIT: SLIDEPLAYER.COM My point in all of this is that we should be more precise and circumspect in using the present tense in narrative prose.
We use
the simple present tense for the here and now: “
I work as a translator for a publishing company.” “
She sees something sinister in this.” And when we want to express an ongoing action that’s happening right now, we take recourse to
the present progressive tense: “
She is seeing something moving at the edge of the clearing.” Of course, we can also use the simple present tense to express an often-repeated action or permanent condition: “
She takes a break at precisely 10:00 a.m.” “
He suffers from total deafness in the right ear.”
In English, though, we must keep in mind that the present tense has two more special forms that don’t necessarily deal with the immediate present. They are
the historical present, and
the rhetorical present of literature, scientific principles, and general truths.
The historical present. This form recounts past events in the present tense to make them more vivid and to create a stronger sense of immediacy. It is often used in narratives, first-person accounts, and dialogue.
Feel the immediacy of this passage from Alphonse Daudet’s short-story, “A Game of Billiards”: “The game
is fascinating. The
balls roll, graze, pass;
they rebound.
Every moment the play grows more interesting.
A flash of light is seen in the sky, and t
he report of a cannon is heard.
A heavy rumbling sound shakes the windows…”
Rhetorical present of literature, scientific principles, and general truths. As a rule, English uses the present tense when the discussion is about literature, scientific principles, and general truths.
Take this passage reviewing Filipino novelist N.V.M. Gonzalez’s novel,
The Bamboo Dancers: “In the first chapter, the
first-person narrator begins his story by recounting that early summer he was in New York.
He has a room all to himself in a place called Fairfield House.
He is through with what he calls his ‘American year,’ having just completed work at the Harrington School of Fine Arts...”
Then take this back-cover blurb for John Fowles’ 1963 novel,
The Collector: “
The setting is a lonely cottage in the English countryside.
The characters are a brutal, tormented man and the beautiful, aristocratic young woman
whom he has taken captive. T
he story is the struggle of two wills, two ways of being, two paths of desire…”
In English grammar, scientific principles and general truths are stated in the present tense unless they have been disproven: “
Newton’s First Law of Motion holds that a
body continues in its state of motion unless compelled by a force to act otherwise.”
On the other hand, disproven principles proven to be false must be stated in the past tense: “
The phlogiston theory held that an elementary principle, called phlogiston by its proponent, G. H. Stahl, was lost from substances when they burned.” (This theory has been displaced by Antoine Lavoisier’s oxygen theory.)
(Next:
Avoiding improper uses of the conjunction “as”) February 25, 2021
This essay, 2,033rd of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the February 18, 2021 Internet edition of The Manila Times
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