Literary Tenses — Synthesis — The Tense Is Never Innocent
Grammar: Literary tenses + Historic present + Would for pas
Free ESL grammar exercise on literary tenses — synthesis themed around the tense is never innocent. Printable worksheet from EnglishPlans.com.
What's on this worksheet
A Level 6 (proficiency) ESL grammar exercise on art, practising literary tenses + historic present + would for pas. The worksheet has a short reading excerpt, a grammar reference and graded practice items.
From the reading
Hilary Mantel, who opens Wolf Hall in the insistent historic present — Thomas Cromwell is sitting, he watches, he waits — does so because the present tense is a theory.
Grammar
- Historic present
- Cromwell enters the room and surveys his enemies. — urgency; past events made immediate
- Habitual 'would'
- Every evening he would walk to the harbour and watch the light fail. — recurring past; elegiac tone
Sample items
- She ______ walk the length of the pier every morning before the fishermen arrived.
- The door ______ open. A man in a grey coat... the threshold.
- He ______ the letter twice and then placed it inside the stove.
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