THE chronic it is a textual genre typical of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, usually being found in newspapers or magazines. In many cases, famous chroniclers - such as Lima Barreto or Luis Fernando Verissimo – collect their chronicles in books.
Features
See, below, the main features of the chronicle.
- The main factor that defines the chronicle is its theme: chronicles address issues related to the daily of cities.
- A good chronicler is one who narrates trivial situations from a particular and creative perspective.
- It is common for this type of text to have clear mood marks.
- The language of the chronicle is usually colloquial It's simple. Lightness in language is typical of the genre.
- Typically, chronicles are published in newspapers, magazines and blogs.
Read too: Also read “Ciao”, the last chronicle by Carlos Drummond
Types of Chronicle
The production of chronicles is directly linked to the spread of press in society. It was through newspapers that, a priori, the chronicles began to circulate in the lives of citizens. However, if this publication space is still the most used by chroniclers, the types of chronicles that exist are diverse. Somehow it is possible to say that there are two types of chronicle: at narratives and journalistic ones.
- narrative chronicle: they are those that do not have predominant argumentative or reflexive textual structures. In this case, the chronicle can be defined as a literary genre marked by narration of everyday situations from an individual perspective.
- Journalistic Chronicle: Differently from the previous one, the journalistic chronicles they mix narrative and argumentative textual typologies. This is because, based on the narration of everyday facts, newspaper columnists promote reflections and develop theses and arguments.
Video lesson on Chronicle
Typically, journalistic chronicles address matters of relative social importance. Read below a journalistic chronicle written by Lima Barreto facing an unfortunately everyday fact: violence against women.
don't kill them
This boy who, in Deodoro, wanted to kill his ex-fiancée and then committed suicide is a symptom of revival of a feeling that seemed to have died in men's hearts: dominion, quand même, about the woman.
The case is not unique. Not long ago, on carnival days, a young man shot his ex-fiancée, around Estácio's side, killing himself. The girl with the bullet in her spine came to die, days later, amid atrocious sufferings.
Another one, too, for carnival, there in the bands of the ex-future Hotel Monumental, which replaced the ancient Convento da Ajuda with piles of stones, shot his ex-fiancée and killed her.
All these gentlemen seem not to know what the will of others is.
They think they have the right to impose their love or desire on those who don't want them. I don't know if they think they are very different from armed thieves; but what is certain is that they only snatch from us money, while these murderous brides-to-be want everything that is most sacred in another entity, pistol in hand.
The thief still leaves us alive if we pass him the money; those passionate, however, do not even establish the alternative: the purse or life. They do not; kill soon.
We already had husbands who killed adulterous wives; now we have grooms who kill ex-fiancées.
[...]
The forgetting that they are, like all of us, subject to various influences that make their inclinations, their friendships, their tastes, their loves, it's such a stupid thing, that only among savages should have existed.
All experimenters and observers of moral facts have shown the inanity of generalizing the eternity of love.
It can exist, it exists, but exceptionally; and to demand it in the law or at the barrel of a revolver is as absurd as trying to prevent the sun from changing the hour of its birth.
Let women love at will.
Don't kill them, for God's sake!
Lima Barreto, 1915.
- Humorous chronicle: Both in narrative and journalistic chronicles, it is very common for humor to be one of the keynotes of the text. The use of irony, unusual comparisons or even thematization of comic subjects par excellence are some of the techniques used by the chroniclers.
Read more: See also this other narrative genre
How to make a chronicle
To make a good chronicle, it is necessary, initially, to be a society observer. The chronicler's particular and unusual vision is what gives originality to the genre. Also, it is necessary to use a light language, often colloquial, and trying to demonstrate how everyday life can be full of meaning.
By M. Fernando Marinho