A chronography is describing something chronologically.
The term chronography comes from the late Latin chronographĭa , in turn derived from the Greek word chronographía . This is what the description of various events or characters is called chronologically : that is, according to a chronology (a temporal order).
Chronography is part of literary figures . It allows describing the time in which an event or an element is framed, contributing to its understanding based on these mentions of time.
Description of an era
It can be indicated that chronography helps to immerse oneself in the era of a text . Through details, it manages to evoke and define a time period, which can be a year, a season, a day, etc.
It is common to use chronography in chronicles . This figure places the reader in the temporal context and thus can better understand the events that are narrated.
Chronography focuses on the time in which an event is framed.
Examples of chronography
Let's look at an example of chronography: «It was a cold winter morning when the residents of the San Agustín neighborhood woke up startled by an explosion. In those first hours of June 29, 1985, the history of this small community changed, which would never be the same again. The days passed and the trauma of the inhabitants intensified…” As can be seen, this text appeals to chronography by mentioning a date and a season before advancing with information about the episode itself.
Chronography can also appear in colloquial conversation , without the person consciously deciding its use: «The last time I swam in the sea was in the summer of 2002, when I visited my grandfather in Playa Dorada, where he lived. It was so hot! Months later my grandfather passed away and I have not returned to the coastal area since then .
The importance of context
Like almost any other communication resource, chronography is not always useful or aesthetic, although if used at the right time and in the right context it can give incomparable results. This is because each message must be governed by certain parameters, such as tone, language and the interlocutor to whom it is directed, and the combination of these factors does not always allow the elaboration of a speech with chronological data .
In a chronicle it works perfectly, since this literary genre, which is included in historiography, is based on compiling a series of historical events that are presented in the same order in which they occurred. Both in this term and in chronography we have the component chronos , which in Greek refers to "time." We could not relate a series of real events without placing the reader in the era or periods in which they took place, since they would lose their strength and meaning.
However, in a text where the important thing is the sentimental level of the characters, for example, at the moment of the narration itself, it is not necessary to relate in great detail everything that refers to the location in time. Let's imagine a suspense story that begins when the main character wakes up in a dark room, in which a beam of light is simply filtered through a hole in the ceiling. He doesn't know where he is or what has happened to him. It would probably not be appropriate to begin the narrative by placing the reader in a specific date and historical period, unless that would really serve to help the reader believe in the events that will take place later .
If the protagonist had to face certain tortures that took place in a specific period of history , or if when escaping from the place the architecture of the streets and the types of means of transportation were relevant, then we could resort to chronography.