Ana'chronism

Ana'chronism (Gr. ana, 'backwards,' chronos, 'time'), the erroneous reference of a circumstance or custom to a wrong date; as when Shakespeare, in Troilus and Cressida, makes Agamemnon quote Aristotle, or Raphael represents the Blessed Virgin as an Italian contadina. Etymologically, it should apply only to a date which is too early—prochronism, but it is also used of too late a date—parachronism. Anachronisms may be made in regard to mode of thought and style of writing, as well as in regard to mere events; and, indeed, many persons lack the historical sense and the feeling of historical perspective so much, that their whole conceptions of the past are nothing but a continuous anachronism. It is difficult for a writer to project himself so completely into a past age as to breathe freely in its atmosphere. Most of our so-called historical novels, however good as novels, are of but little value to the serious student of history. Even the glowing imagination of a Scott or Kingsley can hardly make more of their old-world figures than nineteenth-century men and women in antique garb. There is hardly a novel of its class that contains more study than Thackeray's Esmond, yet here a Jacobite whistles 'Lilliburlero,' and a book is spoken of in 1712 which was not published until 1750. Sometimes an anachronism is purposely made for the sake of effect, or to bring certain events within convenient compass for dramatic purposes. Thus, Shakespeare makes Cassius say, in Julius Caesar, 'The clock hath stricken three;' and Schiller, in his Piccolomini, introduces a lightning-conductor more than a hundred years before the date of its invention. These discrepancies, however, do not seriously injure the general truth of a poetical work. The anachronism is more offensive when, in a work which pedantically adheres to the costumes and other external features of old times, we find a modern style of thought and language, as in the old French dramas of Corneille and Racine. In popular epic poetry it is a common feature. Achilles is always young; Helena, always beautiful. In their versions of old classic traditions, the writers of the middle ages converted Alexander, Æneas, and other ancient heroes, into good Christian knights of the 12th century. In the Nibelungen-lied, Attila and Theodoric are good friends and allies, though the latter began to reign some forty years after the former. At the end of the poem, the heroine, who must have been nearly sixty years old, is still 'the beautiful Queen Kriemhild.'