SOURCE: Acheson, Katherine Osler. “The Modernity of the Early Modern: The Example of Anne Clifford.” In Discontinuities: New Essays on Renaissance Literature and Criticism, edited by Viviana Comensoli and Paul Stevens, pp. 27-51. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Acheson discusses Clifford's writing as an example of the paradoxical nature of modernity. Clifford, Acheson argues, anticipates modernity in her alienation from the present and by using the past to refigure the future.

Imaginary time is indistinguishable from directions in space. If one can go north, one can turn around and head south; equally, if one can go forward in imaginary time, one ought to be able to turn round and go backward. This means there can be no important difference between the forward and the backward directions of imaginary time. On the other hand, when one looks at ‘real’ time, there's a very big difference...