The Uses of Anachronism in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida

Year 2017, Volume: 16 Issue: 4, 1048 - 1056, 07.11.2017

Evrim Doğan Adanur

https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.341889

Cited By: 1

Abstract

William
Shakespeare is one of the greatest anachronists. Together with all the historical
inaccuracies for the sake of dramatic effect, he also uses intentional,
unintentional, and “necessary” anachronisms in his plays. While writing his version
of the “Homeric” tale of the Trojan War, Shakespeare brings together the
controversies of the rampantly changing early modern world from a feudal to a
capitalist one in Troilus and Cressida.
In a tale stemming from the antiquity and transformed, even reproduced during
the medieval age through the romance tradition, Shakespeare juxtaposes the
“old” and the “new” in his handling of the medieval/feudal Trojans and early modern/capitalist
Greeks. The “chivalric” medieval age finds its representation especially in
Trojan Hector and the “modern” in Greek Ulysses. This paper examines the ways
in which the past and the present are correlated in Troilus and Cressida and the “chronos” is transformed into “kairos”
with the juxtaposition of contemporary ideologies in a seemingly Homeric world.

Keywords

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, anachronism, kairos

The Uses of Anachronism in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida

Abstract

William Shakespeare en önemli anakronistlerdendir. Oyunlarında, dramatik
amaçlı yaptığı tarihsel yanlışlıkların yanı sıra bilinçli, bilinçsiz ve
“gerekli” kronik hatalar görülmektedir. Troilus
ve Cressida oyununda Shakespeare, Truva savaşının kendi Homerik hikayesini
yazarken de hızla feodalden kapitaliste dönüşen erken modern çağın tartışmalarını
bir araya getirmektedir. Antik çağa ait olan ve orta çağ boyunca romans
geleneği ile değişen hatta yeniden yazılan hikayede Shakespeare “eski” ve
“yeni”yi orta çağa ait/feudal Truvalılar ve erken modern çağa ait/kapitalist
Yunanlıların temsilleriyle yan yana sunmaktadır. Oyunda orta çağın “şövalyelik”
özelliği Truvalı Hector’da, “modern”e ait özellikler de Yunan Ulysses üzerinden
temsil edilmektedir. Bu makalede Troilus
ve Cressida oyununda geçmiş ve şimdiki zamanın nasıl yoğrulduğu ve çağdaş
ideolojilerin güya Homerik bir dünyada bir araya getirilmesiyle “kronos”un
nasıl “kairos”a dönüştüğünü incelenmektedir.

Keywords

Shakespeare, Troilus ve Cressida, anakronizm

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