My Favorite Literary Term: Anachronism

This literary term makes my list of favorites because I love words with roots that I can break apart.

I guess I have Ms. Ticknor, now Mrs. Chadwick, to thank for the Greek and Latin root part knowledge.  She was my Honors Freshman English teacher at Medical Lake High School and she really had a thing for root parts.  At the time, I kind of hated the assignments, but now... all these years later... I appreciate and think fondly of her when I use the skills she hammered into my 14 year old self. 

So, briefly, ANA is "against" and CHRON (really khronos but English killed the spelling) is "time".  If something is an anachronism, or is anachronistic, it is out of joint in time. 

My trusty OED (Oxford English Dictionary for those out of the loop) says that the first recorded use of the word is this, "...making Dido and Aeneas co-temporaries, whereas they lived Three Hundred Years distance...committed an Anachronism." and T. Hearne gets the credit.

But this is not a very spicy or fun example. In fact, it's boring and lame.

One of the most famous examples is a book that most Americans have heard of, even if they have never read it: "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by the infamous Mark Twain.  If you click the link, you can see a great cover image that shows the 19C. man totally out of place in King Arthur's time (6C. -ish).  It is a very humorous read if you need something for your summer list.

You can see anachronisms in TV shows if you pay attention.  It's a bit like product placement, but instead of showing a coke can, you will see something that had not been invented yet making a cameo.  If you watch Dr. Who, or other shows that involve time travel you see this a lot. 

Anachronism does not always have to do with comedy.  Sometimes its use creates drama.  In Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in Act one, the sun and the moon are in the sky together-- the sun has invaded the dominion of the night and scares the ghost back to whence he came.  The scene creates drama in the play because of the unnatural quality of the events-- the sun and the moon should not be in the sky together-- and this event plays on the superstitious nature of people of the time (16C.). 

One of the more English teacher-y parts of the play "Hamlet" defines anachronism well when Hamlet says:

Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint—O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let's go together. (I.v.86-90)

Ironically--another lit term to define for you soon-- Shakespeare has an anachronism in the play.  Hamlet goes to school at Wittenburg University, but the university was not founded until several centuries later.  I guess Shakespeare needed a better research assistant and fact checker.  

If you want to get involved with some people who really love there anachronisms check this group out: The Society for Creative Anachronisms and here.