Editing Anachronism (section)

==Art and literature==
[[File:Alma-Tadema The-flower-market-1868.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Lawrence Alma-Tadema]] (1868). Flower market in Roman times, with a cactus and two agaves.<ref>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Succulenta_Alma-Tadema.pdf Succulenta 2017]</ref> Cacti and agaves are [[Columbian exchange|originally American]] plants.]]
[[File:Lorenzo Lotto 017.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Lorenzo Lotto]]. (c. 1480 – 1556/57) Birth of Jesus with a crucifix on the wall.]]
Anachronism is used especially in works of imagination that rest on a historical basis. Anachronisms may be introduced in many ways: for example, in the disregard of the different modes of life and thought that characterize different periods, or in ignorance of the progress of the arts and sciences and other facts of history. They vary from glaring inconsistencies to scarcely perceptible misrepresentation. Anachronisms may be the unintentional result of ignorance, or may be a deliberate aesthetic choice.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.popmatters.com/feature/174817-for-infidelity-reconsidering-aesthetic-anachronism/ |title=For Infidelity: Reconsidering Aesthetic Anachronism |last=Potthast |first=Jane |work=[[PopMatters]] |date=2013-09-18 |access-date=2014-06-11}}</ref>

Sir [[Walter Scott]] justified the use of anachronism in historical literature: "It is necessary, for exciting interest of any kind, that the subject assumed should be, as it were, translated into the manners as well as the language of the age we live in."<ref>{{cite book |first=Walter |last=Scott |author-link=Walter Scott |title=Ivanhoe; a Romance |place=Edinburgh |year=1820 |volume=1 |page=xvii |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zzQJAAAAQAAJ}}</ref> However, as fashions, conventions and technologies move on, such attempts to use anachronisms to engage an audience may have quite the reverse effect, as the details in question are increasingly recognized as belonging neither to the historical era being represented, nor to the present, but to the intervening period in which the artwork was created. "Nothing becomes obsolete like a period vision of an older period", writes [[Anthony Grafton]]; "Hearing a mother in a historical movie of the 1940s call out 'Ludwig! [[Ludwig van Beethoven]]! Come in and practice your piano now!' we are jerked from our suspension of disbelief by what was intended as a means of reinforcing it, and plunged directly into the American [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] world of the filmmaker."<ref>Grafton 1990, p. 67.</ref>

It is only since the beginning of the 19th century that anachronistic deviations from historical reality have jarred on a general audience. [[C. S. Lewis]] wrote:
{{blockquote|All medieval narratives about the past are ... lacking in a sense of period.... It was known that [[Adam]] went naked till he fell. After that, [medieval people] pictured the whole past in terms of their own age. So indeed did the [[Elizabethan era|Elizabethans]]. So did [[John Milton|Milton]]; he never doubted that "[[capon]] and white broth" would have been as familiar to Christ and the disciples as to himself. It is doubtful whether the sense of period is much older than the [[Waverley novels]]. It is hardly present in [[Edward Gibbon|Gibbon]]. [[Horace Walpole|Walpole]]'s ''[[The Castle of Otranto|Otranto]]'', which would not now deceive schoolchildren, could hope, not quite vainly, to deceive the public of 1765. Where even the most obvious and superficial distinctions between one century (or millennium) and another were ignored, the profounder differences of temper and mental climate were naturally not dreamed of.... [In [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]]'s ''[[Troilus and Criseyde]]''], [t]he manners, the fighting, the religious services, the very traffic-regulations of his Trojans, are fourteenth-century.<ref>{{cite book |first=C. S. |last=Lewis |author-link=C. S. Lewis |title=The Discarded Image: an introduction to medieval and Renaissance literature |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1964 |pages=182–84 |ol=5918225M}}</ref>}}

Anachronisms abound in the works of [[Raffaello Santi|Raphael]]<ref>{{cite book |title=Raphael Santi: His Life and His Works |last=von Wolzogen |first=Alfred Freiherr |publisher=[[Smith, Elder & Co.]] |year=1866 |page=[https://archive.org/details/gri_33125007717719/page/n251 232] |url=https://archive.org/details/gri_33125007717719}}</ref> and [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]],<ref>{{cite book |title=Shakespeare and the Uses of Antiquity: An Introductory Essay |last=Martindale |first=Michelle |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2005 |isbn=9781134848508 |pages=121–125 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PDwrK5FNnN0C&pg=PA121}}</ref> as well as in those of less celebrated painters and playwrights of earlier times. [[Carol Meyers]] says that anachronisms in ancient texts can be used to better understand the stories by asking what the anachronism represents.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/2014/02/14/276782474/the-genesis-of-camels |title=Archaeology Find: Camels In 'Bible' Are Literary Anachronisms |last=Montagne |first=Renee |publisher=[[NPR]] |date=2014-02-14 |access-date=2014-06-15}}</ref> Repeated anachronisms and historical errors can become an accepted part of popular culture, such as the belief that Roman legionaries wore leather armor.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2011-03-31/time-meddlers-anachronisms-in-print-and-on-film |title=Time meddlers: anachronisms in print and on film |last=Cole |first=Tom |work=[[Radio Times]] |date=2011-03-31 |access-date=2014-07-31 |archive-date=2021-04-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429200312/https://www.radiotimes.com/ |url-status=dead}}</ref>

<gallery widths="200" heights="200" class="center">
File:Lucas van Leyden - Lot and his Daughters - WGA12932.jpg|''[[Lot and His Daughters (anonymous)|Lot and His Daughters]]'', a painting of {{c.}}1520, shows Biblical [[Sodom and Gomorrah|Sodom]] as a typical Dutch city of the painter's time.
File:Pedro Berruguete Saint Dominic Presiding over an Auto-da-fe 1495.jpg|[[St Dominic]], active in the 13th century, shown presiding over an ''[[auto-da-fé]]'' ceremony of a kind only instituted more than two hundred years after his death<ref name="Prado">[http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/saint-dominic-presides-over-an-auto-da-fe/ Saint Dominic presiding over an Auto-da-fe] at [[Museo del Prado|Prado Museum]]</ref>
File:Claude Lorrain 008.jpg|''[[The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba]]'', a 1648 painting by [[Claude Lorrain]] showing the arrival of the [[Queen of Sheba]] on [[17th century|17th-century]] [[sailing ship]]s, with [[Renaissance architecture|Renaissance-style]] buildings.
File:Charles I, Holy Roman Emperor.jpg|[[Charlemagne]] wearing the [[Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire]], by [[Albrecht Dürer]], {{circa|1512}}. The crown was made a century and a half after Charlemagne's death.
</gallery>

[[File:Harikalar Diyari Flintstones 06029 nevit.jpg|thumb|[[Dinosaurs]] co-existing with [[hominid]]s, as in ''[[The Flintstones]]'', is a relatively common anachronistic depiction in comics and animated cartoons.]]

===Comical anachronism===
[[Comedy]] fiction set in the past may use anachronism for humorous effect. Comedic anachronism can be used to make serious points about both historical and modern society, such as drawing parallels to political or social conventions.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.popmatters.com/feature/174969-hollywood-history-and-the-art-of-the-big-anachronism/ |title=Hollywood, History, and the Art of the Big Anachronism |last=van Riper |first=A. Bowdoin |work=[[PopMatters]] |date=2013-09-26 |access-date=2014-06-11}}</ref>

===Future anachronism===<!-- Section is linked from the redirected [Future anachronism] article; use caution. -->
{{See also|Retrofuturism}}
[[File:Amazing stories 193107.jpg|thumb|left|upright|A 1931 ''[[Amazing Stories]]'' cover has future [[space technology]] advanced enough for a large-scale [[colonization of Mars]] alongside [[propeller (aeronautics)|propeller airplanes]].]]

Even with careful research, [[science fiction]] writers risk anachronism as their works age because they cannot predict all political, social, and technological change.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction |last1=Athans |first1=Philip |author-link1=Philip Athans |last2=Salvatore |first2=R. A. |author-link2=R. A. Salvatore |publisher=[[Adams Media]] |year=2010 |isbn=9781440507298 |pages=167–170 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R8DrDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT167}}</ref>

For example, many books, television shows, radio productions and films nominally set in the mid-21st century or later refer to the [[Soviet Union]], to [[Saint Petersburg]] in Russia as [[Leningrad]], to [[Cold War|the continuing struggle between the Eastern and Western Blocs]] and to [[history of Germany (1945–90)|divided Germany and divided Berlin]].{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} ''[[Star Trek]]'' has suffered from future anachronisms; instead of "[[retroactive continuity|retconning]]" these errors, the [[Star Trek (2009 film)|2009 film]] retained them for consistency with older franchises.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cnet.com/culture/living-the-star-trek-life/ |title=Living the Star Trek life |last=Glaskowsky |first=Peter |work=[[CNET]] |date=2009-05-08 |access-date=2014-06-11}}</ref>

Buildings or natural features, such as the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]] in [[New York City]], can become out of place once they disappear,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2002/12/06/AR2005033116653.html |title='Empire': Gangster Tale Sleeps With the Fishes |last=Hornaday |first=Ann |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=2002-12-06 |access-date=2014-06-11}}</ref> with some works having been [[List of entertainment affected by the September 11 attacks|edited to remove the World Trade Center]] to avoid this situation.

Futuristic technology may appear alongside technology which would be obsolete by the time in which the story is set. For example, in the stories of [[Robert A. Heinlein]], interplanetary space travel coexists with calculation using [[slide rule]]s.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lyons |first1=Michele |title=Sliding Through Science History, Part 2 |url=https://irp.nih.gov/blog/post/2016/06/sliding-through-science-history-part-2 |website=NIH Intramural Research Program |date=9 June 2016 |access-date=April 9, 2021}}</ref>

===Language anachronism===
[[Language]] anachronisms in novels and films are quite common, both intentional and unintentional.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/2013/02/26/172955182/historical-vocab-when-we-get-it-wrong-does-it-matter |title=Historical Vocab: When We Get It Wrong, Does It Matter? |last=Nunberg |first=Geoff |work=[[NPR]] |date=2013-02-26 |access-date=2014-06-11}}</ref> Intentional anachronisms inform the audience more readily about a film set in the past. In this regard, language and pronunciation change so fast that most modern people (even many scholars) would find it difficult, or even impossible, to understand a film with dialogue in 15th-century English; thus, audiences [[suspension of disbelief|willingly accept]] characters speaking an updated language, and modern [[slang]] and figures of speech are often used in these films.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/26/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-3-26-00-on-language-anachronism.html |title=The Way We Live Now: 3-26-00: On Language; Anachronism |last=Safire |first=William |author-link=William Safire |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=2000-03-26 |access-date=2014-07-31}}</ref>