Stop-Time: Present, Past, and Future Walk into a Bar…. It’s Tense

Authors

John Paine, Belmont UniversityFollow

Abstract

I will discuss primarily how three Western thinkers and writers approach human time. St. Augustine articulates the plight of human beings caught in ever-fleeing time in Book XI of his Confessions. J.-J. Rousseau in his Reveries finds an answer to the fleeting nature of time in reaching moments of being when he is entirely present to himself. Marcel Proust “finds time again” in bringing into focus present and past time in his novel In Search of Lost Time. Interspersed with discussion of these works will be apposite examples of how other poets and thinkers have dealt with the human condition of being trapped in time.

Keywords

Humanities Symposium

Recommended Citation

Paine, John (2014) "Stop-Time: Present, Past, and Future Walk into a Bar…. It’s Tense," Belmont Humanities Symposium Journal: Vol. 5, Article 3.
Available at: https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium_journal/vol5/iss1/3