Present tense : a poetics

Author(s)

    • Avanessian, Armen
    • Henning, Anke
    • Schott, Nils F.
    • Hendrickson, Daniel

Bibliographic Information

Present tense : a poetics

Armen Avanessian and Anke Hennig ; translated by Nils F. Schott with Daniel Hendrickson

(Literary studies)

Bloomsbury Academic, c2015

  • : pbk

Other Title

Präsens : Poetik eines Tempus

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Note

"Originally published as Präsens : Poetik eines Tempus, c2012 diaphanes, Zurich" -- Verso title page

Includes bibliographical references (p. [233]-280) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

The invention of the present-tense novel is a literary event whose importance is on par with the discovery of perspective in painting. From the first novels shaped by interior monologues and the use of the present tense in the tradition of modernism, the present tense has, over the course of its century-long evolution, changed the conditions of fictional narration, along with our conceptions of time in a philosophical and linguistic framework. Indeed, to understand the work of an increasing number of contemporary writers - J.M. Coetzee, Tom McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, to name only a few - it is necessary to both understand the distinct linguistic and literary qualities of the present tense as well as its historical transformation into a genuine tense of contemporary storytelling. For the first time in literary scholarship, Present Tense: A Poetics offers an account of a profound development in 20th- and 21st-century fiction.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Present Tense Novel 2. Readings in Methodology 3. The Imaginary Present Tense 4. Tense Philosophy Conclusion Glossary Notes

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