Historic present

Greek Learning Greek
1

I thought it might be convenient to start a new thread on this which comes from Lukas’ question in this thread http://discourse.textkit.com/t/unit-29-part-iv/18199/1

Lukas your use of “historical” prompted me to look at how various grammars deal with this issue. I haven’t reached any startling conclusions but having chased this up through the books I have I thought I would record the results.

There are two questions First and perhaps least important is terminology. Secondly how do the different grammars interpret this phenomenon.

There are endless arguments about “historic” versus “historical”. At various times in the past they have been used interchangeably. Generally, nowadays, historic is used as a description of “something important” in the past and historical is used about “something” that is simply in the past. This isn’t a hard and fast rule and many people are inconsistent in how they apply it.

The OED cites “historic present” as " the present tense when used instead of the past in vivid narration".

Goodwin (1252) uses this definition of “historic present” and cites an example from Thucydides. Mastronarde also uses this definition p. 47. They both use the term “historic present”.

Smyth (1883) uses the same definition: “In lively or dramatic narration the present may be used to represent a past action as going on at the moment of speaking or writing. This use does not occur in Homer.” but he calls it the “Historical Present”. (he also cites a passage in Thucydides but not the same one as Goodwin).

As these authors do not specifically draw attention to the exceptional nature of the events narrated in this way (although it might be thought of as implicit) perhaps the most appropriate name would be “historical”.

The Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek complicates the issue. It starts boldly with Historical Present and then equivocates with historic(al) present. It is perhaps a more nuanced account as it notes that “The present indicative is used occasionally to highlight decisive or crucial events in a narrative, often those that definitively change the situation in the narrated world” But its mixture of “used occasionally” and “often those that definitively change” is a bit confusing. (I at least had to read it twice).

Apologies for any errors in accents in this extract. My eyesight is not what it was. :smiley:
Historical Present

33.54 The present indicative is used occasionally to highlight decisive or crucial
events in a narrative, often those that definitively change the situation in the
narrated world; in effect, this so-called historic(al) present (or ‘narrative
present’) makes it seem as if an action that occurred in the past occurs in
the present and is, therefore, all the more urgent. It occurs nearly exclusively
with telic verbs (thus verbs such as ειμί be, κεΐμαι lie, are not normally used as
historical presents):

(81) παρῆν καὶ ή γυνή. ἐσελθοῦσαν δὲ καὶ τιθεῖσαν τὰ εἵματα ἐθηεῖτο ὁ Γύγης. ὡς δὲ
κατὰ νώτου ἐγένετο ἰούσης τῆς γυναικὸς ἐς τὴν κοίτην, ὑπεκδὺς ἐχώρεε ἔξω. καὶ
ἡ γυνὴ ἐπορᾷ μιν ἐξιόντα. (Hdt. 1.10.1-2)

The woman appeared as well. Gyges saw her come in and undress. And, as the
woman was getting into bed and her back was turned to him, he slipped away
and was on his way out. And the woman spotted him leaving. The historical
present έττορα marks the pivotal moment in the story that will have dramatic
consequences for the woman, her husband the king, and his bodyguard Gyges.

(82) ὤσαντες δὲ τὴν θύραν του δωματίου οἱ μὲν πρῶτοι εἰσιόντες ἔτι εἴδομεν αὐτὸν
κατακείμενον παρὰ τῇ γυναικί, οἱ δ’ ὕστερον ἐν τῇ κλίνῃ γυμνὸν ἑστηκότα. ἐγὼ
δ’, ὦ ἄνδρες, πατάξας καταβάλλω αὐτόν. (Lys. 1.24-5)

And pushing in the door of the bedroom, the first of us to go in saw him still
lying with my wife, and those who came in later saw him standing naked on
the bed. And I, gentlemen, gave him a blow and struck him down.
The speaker’s violent reaction to the man he catches in bed with his wife is
expressed in the historical present.

Note 1: The imperfective aspect of the present stem appears to play no role in the historical
present, which usually presents actions as complete. For this, —>·33.20.

For other examples of the historical present cf. (4), (19), (30), (35), (75), (85), and
especially —>61.1-3.

33.55 Authors make a fairly individual use of the historical present. In some texts it is not so much
used at dramatic turns, but rather to ‘punctuate’ a narrative, dividing it up into separate
sections by highlighting each new step:

(83) Κῦρος … ὡρμᾶτο ἀπὸ Σάρδεων· καὶ ἐξελαύνει διὰ τῆς Λυδίας ἐξελαύνει διὰ Φρυγίας …
εντεῦθεν ἐξελαύνει … εἰς Κελαινάς (Xen. An. 1.2.5, 1.2.6, 1.2.7, etc.

Cyrus set forth from Sardis; and he marched through Lydia … He marched through
Phrygia … From there he marched to Celaena. The historical present ἐξελαύνει here
introduces each successive new stage in Cyrus’ march.

Note 1: This use may be similar to the use of the English simple present in summaries and
chapter headings (e.g. Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Book 5, chapter 7, In which Mr Allworthy
appears on a Sick-Bed). The reason for the use of a present tense in such cases appears to be
that the information is presented as accessible at any time. On this analysis, this use is in fact
closer to the ‘timeless’ use of the present indicative (—»33.16) than to the historical present of
33.54.

33.56 Just as the present indicative may be used to present past actions as if they occur in the present,
it may also be used to present actions in the future as if they take place in the present. This
present for the future occurs particularly in the language of oracles and prophecies: the future
is seen as taking place in front of the prophet’s eyes:

(84) τότ’ ἐλεύθερον Ἑλλάδος ἧμαρ | εὐρύοπα Κρονίδης ἐπάγει καὶ πότνια Νίκη. (Hdt. 8.77.2)

At that time, far-seeing Zeus and mighty Victory shall bring the day of freedom for
Greece. _The conclusion of an oracle, as reported by Herodotus._So those of us used to older grammars might call this either the “Historic” or “Historical” present and mean by that a vivid narrative style. The CGCG draws attention to the decisive or crucial nature of the events narrated, although it observes that some authors use it as a form of “punctuation”. I think this underlines the necessity of looking at the context, and forming your best judgement.

Specially (if you have read this far):

Is the historical present used to emphasize memorable events?

I dont think it is restricted to “memorable events”. What a memorable event is must be a subjective judgement and perhaps ancient historians thought all the events they wrote about were memorable. I think its best to think of it as a narrative device to make the the prose a bit more lively.

Do the philosophers use the historical present, or is it used more in narrative.

I think you will find it much more often in historians than elsewhere. Goodwin specifically says it is not found in Homer. I can’t think of an example in Plato but that’s not to say there isn’t one. I am sure Chad knows the answer!

2

Hi Lukas,

If you go on to read Xenophon, you’ll see he employs the historic present frequently and mostly for vividness. In histories, the author is normally discussing past events, so most of the narrative is written using past tenses. By using the historic present, he makes a particular episode stand out and draws the reader closer to the action. Your translation exercise is a good example.

3

One thing that I’ve noticed, especially in Xenophon, that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere, is the switch to present tense used to separate background and main information. Background information is presented in a past sense, and then he switches over to present when he gets to the scene that he’s actually describing. It is more vivid, but I think that the old grammars are a little off in presenting that as the major aim: I’d note that there’s often no special concentration on detail or other attendant “vividness” storytelling effects when the switch comes. This is in contrast to something like the synoptic gospels, where the authors do often attempt to bring in poignant detail into his historic present scenes, and do seem to be using it especially for the storytelling effect.

4

As Seneca lays out, it’s really not easy to pin down the function of the “historic(al) present” or whether that is really a useful category. You may be interested in some of the more recent, linguistically-informed literature (the old grammars show their age most on topics like these). An essay in “Grammar as Interpretation” (ed. Egbert Bakker) comes to mind, though I’m sure there are more recent works. In many cases, such presents seem to pick out the main plot/issue/argument and separate it from secondary elements, rather than have anything to do with “vividness,” special “drama,” “decisiveness,” etc. You can see how the traditional understanding breaks down with the related category of present-for-past, viz. the so-called “annalistic present” or “journalistic present,” for example in genealogies, where “vividness” is conspicuously absent.

Grammatically, note that historical present often shifts into secondary tenses (as in the Xenophon passage), even within the same sentence. It would be unusual to have an extended passage of uninterrupted historical presents. As grammatically past, they can introduce the oblique optative—students often find this difficult.

And yes, for sure in Plato too.

Edit: I see Joel made a similar point about main vs. secondary information. You’ll find that dynamic outside of Xenophon as well; though not so much in the Hellenistic lit after him.