Identities of the Chronicle: Hybridity, Polysemy and Historical Echoes in a Genre between Literature and Journalism

Abstract

As with all border concepts, the concept of chronicle is not exactly crystal clear, particularly when looking for a definition that generates consensus or that acquires some kind of universality. In this paper, we attempt to define it by making a historical review in order to try and understand its diferent nuances. A chronicle is a hybrid and polysemic term that is somewhere between literature and journalism. After analyzing the journalistic varieties, we were able to identify three types of productions: first, a modality linked to present times, which is shorter; second, long-winded productions, which are demanding in terms of research and access to sources; and third, a variety of author’s texts of a more essayistic nature, which uses the informative element only as a starting point. With this distinction, our goal is to unravel the confusion generated by the journalistic genre, since a chronicle is the first modality in Spain, while in some Latin American countries the diferent meanings coexist under the same name.