Subj : A question about tenses
To   : Dallas Hinton
From : Anton Shepelev
Date : Wed May 20 2020 21:56:02

Dallas Hinton to Alexander Koryagin:

> AK> BTW, Anton used such a time shift in his question. I was also
> AK> told many times not to do such a thing in one sentence or
> AK> even in one paragraph.
>
> As usual, "rules are made to be broken". :-)  The challenge is in
> making the break work!  "Presents" or "presented" becomes a
> matter of how it sounds and feels - neither is exclusively right
> or wrong.

I disagree. The present simple is *the* tense when writing about
literature, perhaps because good literature is timeless :-? Examples
from the wild:

1. In an entry from April of 1847, 21-year-old Tolstoy writes: [...]
2. Artistotle saith there is a kind of insect near the river
   Hypanis, which runs from a certain part of Europe into the
   Pontus, whose life consists but of one day; those that die at the
   eighth hour die in full age; those who die when the sun sets are
   very old, especially when the days are at the longest.
3. Later in the same article, Morris writes: "The art of mosaic
   windows is especially an art of the Middle ages."
4. Paustovsky writes: "I did not want to shatter this naive belief
   of the village shepherd boy. Maybe because this naivete concealed
   the real truth about the genuine craft of a writer-a truth we do
   not always remember and do not always strive to live by".

The great old authors have died in time but have reamined in
enternity.

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