Text and Metatext: Shakespeare and Anachronism

Abstract

I open this chapter with passages from two recent retellings of the Robin Hood legend to illustrate two very different kinds of anachronism, both of which are common in popular narratives, but which have, in many respects, entirely opposite effects.

(A jug of mead is being passed around the circle. Hal makes as if to skip Azeem, the Moor.)

ROBIN. Has English hospitality changed so much in six years that a friend of mine is not welcome at this table?

FOLLOWER. But he’s a savage, sire!

ROBIN. That he is. But no more than you or I. And don’t call me ‘sire’.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

(Robin has been affecting an American accent akin to Kevin Costner’s in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.)

MARIAN. Robin, do stop talking in that silly voice. One of these days we’re going to be famous, and our story will be told all over the world in moving picture galleries. It’s going to look really stupid if we’re all nicely spoken and you’re gibbering on like a posey cowboy, isn’t it?

Maid Marian and her Merry Men (1993)