The Anachronistic Turn

The book is the first study to investigate the ways in which the creative use of anachronism in historical fictions can allow us to rethink the relationship between past and present.

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The Anachronistic Turn: Historical Fiction, Drama, Film and Television is the first study to investigate the ways in which the creative use of anachronism in historical fictions can allow us to rethink the relationship between past and present. Through an examination of literary, cinematic, and popular texts and practices, this book investigates how twenty-first-century historical fictions use creative anachronisms as a way of understanding modern issues and anxieties.

Drawing together a wide range of texts across all forms of historical fiction – novels, dramas, musicals, films and television – this book re-frames anachronism not as an error but as a deliberate strategy that emphasises the fictionalising tendencies of all forms of historical writing. The book achieves this by exploring three core themes: the developing trends in the twenty-first century for creators of historical fiction to include deliberate anachronisms, such as contemporary references, music and language; the ways in which the deliberate use of anachronism in historical fiction can allow us to rethink the relationship between past and present; and the way that contemporary historical fiction uses anachronism to better understand modern issues and anxieties.

This book will appeal to students and scholars of historical fiction, contemporary historical film and television studies, and historical theatre studies.