Peter I'll allow that I'm confused about simple present tense. In the  
sentence "I am drinking a glass of water right now" is it progressive  
present because of the participle "drinking"? Even though the action  
does not continue?

Diana



Sent from my iPod

On Mar 11, 2010, at 7:23 AM, Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]>  
wrote:

> In a sense the inversion isolates US. He doesn't devour anything  
> else, just
> US.
>
> P.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Carrol Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 8:23 AM
> Subject: "Us he devours" was ....Re: 'Gerontion' -- Grammatical  
> Accuracy
>
>
>> (Ignoring all Diana's comments on this.)
>>
>> The present tense in English (as in most languages) has a number of
>> different uses, and identifying the use in a particular case offers  
>> or
>> can offer interpretive problems, especially when, as here, there is a
>> deliberate departure from normal English word order of
>> subject-verbv-object. Obmect-subject-verb wold be perfectly normal  
>> and
>> non-ambiguous in Latin, That English has an objective (accusative)  
>> case
>> in pronouns (though not in nouns) makes the Latin word order possible
>> here, and the use of non-English word order is surely the most  
>> strikig
>> feature of the phrase. US he devours -- ie., not "them." But since  
>> the
>> antecedent of "he" is itself an interpretive crux it's hard to know
>> where to_begin_ om cconstruing the phrase, that is, which is the
>> dependent, which the independent variable here. Le's leave the puzzle
>> regarding "he" aside for a moment and focus on the word order and the
>> verb. "Devours" here has an iterative feel: He is in the practice of
>> devouring, not just anyoen, but _us_ (emphasized by word order). The
>> iterative feel and the emphasis on us (rather than someone else)
>> suggests something like an regularly repaeated action, annual in this
>> case.
>>
>> I don't know where to take it from here, except to note that here we
>> have the kind of ambguity Empson was concerned with -- ambiguities  
>> that
>> _function_ significanty in the text, not ambiguties 5that are  
>> pulled out
>> of the air for the fun of it by someone who just thinks ambiguity
>> regardless of purpose is groovy. Weighing the various alternatives is
>> clearly part of theaction that counts in this poem: not the action  
>> mimed
>> by the poem (there is none) but the action of reading. Like so many
>> romantic and modernist poems, the poem is about the act of reading  
>> (we
>> are back to cunning passages).
>>
>> *Carrol
>