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Introduction: Framing the Present

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2019

By
Peter Boxall
Edited by
Peter Boxall
Peter Boxall
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
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Summary

When does the present begin?

An immediate answer to this curiously vexing question might be to suggest that the present does not begin. The present, one might argue, has no duration. It is the now, the passing moment, and as such cannot be truly said to have a beginning or an end, and cannot be measured, or regarded in any sense as having passed, or being to come. The present does not unfold or occur, but is the vanishing, fleeting medium of our immediate becoming.

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to British Fiction: 1980–2018 , pp. 1 - 14
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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