“What’s past is prologue”: negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare
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, a...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor and Francis
2010
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37575/ |
| _version_ | 1848795487810879488 |
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| author | Kirwan, Peter |
| author_facet | Kirwan, Peter |
| author_sort | Kirwan, Peter |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | 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. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:32:52Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-37575 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:32:52Z |
| publishDate | 2010 |
| publisher | Taylor and Francis |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-375752020-05-04T16:29:37Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37575/ “What’s past is prologue”: negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare Kirwan, Peter 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. Taylor and Francis 2010-08-23 Article PeerReviewed Kirwan, Peter (2010) “What’s past is prologue”: negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare. Shakespeare, 6 (3). pp. 337-342. ISSN 1745-0926 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17450918.2010.497856 doi:10.1080/17450918.2010.497856 doi:10.1080/17450918.2010.497856 |
| spellingShingle | Kirwan, Peter “What’s past is prologue”: negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare |
| title | “What’s past is prologue”: negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare |
| title_full | “What’s past is prologue”: negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare |
| title_fullStr | “What’s past is prologue”: negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare |
| title_full_unstemmed | “What’s past is prologue”: negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare |
| title_short | “What’s past is prologue”: negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing Shakespeare |
| title_sort | “what’s past is prologue”: negotiating the authority of tense in reviewing shakespeare |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37575/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37575/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37575/ |