Literature Isn’t Bound by the Rules of Time
In poetry and in prose, past and present can warp, twist, and buckle: Your weekly guide to the best in books
Humans can move through time in only one way: forward, second by second,even when we set the clocks ahead an hour. But literature isn’t bound by the same rules. When narratives take place in the past or future, transporting the reader to the scene ofevents that already occurred or are expected to happen, that’s a kind of time travel exclusive to storytelling.For example, a begins in the present,as the speaker prepares a meal. Then it vividly considers her wife’s childhood, even though the speaker wasn’t present then. It ends with a lament: but then —”
