Changing Tenses in Quotes? (1 Viewer)

[ITimber]

Hello,

Just wondering if it is ok to change tenses in quotes from texts being studied?
For example a poem says "the ship sank...."

If you were quoting that sentence and you were using different tenses in your writing task are you able to change "sank" to "sink."

Our english teacher said you could but I am unsure if that is the case or not?

thanks

 

[jlnWind]

im sorry i doubt you could count that as a quote, tense changes the time frame and hence the point at which it was said, changing context is changing meaning, or most of the time anyways...

BUT what you can do is put an asterix or some marker to a foot note where you make the comment that the particular quote has changed its tense to suit the syntax