Sobre las varias maneras de mentar el presente

Abstract

The word to mention ("mentar") is understood here in its double meaning "to name" and "to conceive mentally", according to Confessions by Saint Augustine. This paper tries to show that it is possible to conceive the present in another ways; for example, the time that takes shape of the temporal unit that the consciousness conceives as present, in spite of the fact that it does not have precise extension. Examples excerpted from literature show that these units of temporal duration can even cover the past and the future. The rhyme, for example, makes from a strophe or from the whole poem, a present unit which contains anticipations of things-that-will-come, as well as things-that-has-passed.

Keywords

• presence
• eternity
• moment
• extension
• duration
• projection