What an anachronism is in literature

A term you'll meet in literature, drama, and film.

An anachronism is something that appears in the wrong historical period — an object, idea, word, or attitude that couldn't have existed when the story is set. The term comes from the Greek for "against time."

The famous example

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, a clock strikes the hour — but striking clocks didn't exist in ancient Rome. That's a textbook anachronism. Shakespeare's audience neither noticed nor cared; historical exactness wasn't the point. The slip only became famous once later readers prized accuracy.

Accident versus intention

Not every anachronism is an error. Writers and directors use deliberate anachronism for effect: a modern soundtrack over a period film, contemporary slang in a retelling of a myth, Sofia Coppola's sneakers glimpsed in Marie Antoinette. Used on purpose, anachronism collapses the distance between past and present and tells the audience, "this old story is about you."

Anachronism of attitude

The subtler kind isn't a prop but a mindset — a medieval character who thinks in thoroughly modern, individualist terms, or a Roman who holds twenty-first century moral views. Historical novelists work hard to avoid this, because it breaks the spell of a believable past.

Why it matters

Anachronism is the natural enemy of verisimilitude — the sense that a fictional world is internally consistent and true to its time. When it's accidental, it punctures the illusion. When it's deliberate, it becomes a way of making a point about how the past and present speak to each other.

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