Cordel literature

The Literatura de Cordel is a small format booklets published in the form of Brazilian folk literature. These books were for a long time in northeastern Brazil, the only available mass media.

The " Literatura de Cordel " goes back to European narrative traditions of the early modern period. At the beginning of the 17th century, it was brought by immigrants to Brazil. It originated from a Brazilian form of literature, which started local legends and African storytelling traditions and the influences of European immigrants. The publication was carried out in booklets, which originally appeared in northeastern Brazil. It was used the language of the common people, in which grammatical rules are ignored and new words were created. The most common existing stanzas were used, each verse containing seven syllables of six verses. The booklets include 8, 16 or 32, rarely 64 pages. The fact that the books are attached to the outlets usually with braces on strings, led to the name " Literatura de Cordel " (in German about: " literature on a string ").

The " Literatura de Cordel " is geared to the interests and tastes of the public. Your content deal with all issues that are the subject of communication in society. Some books to report on events from different parts of Brazil, about crime, historical events or the lives of saints, writers, politicians or regionally important people. The wrappers were later decorated with woodcuts, even with photographs. In the second half of the 20th century, the " Literatura de Cordel " maintained its important place in the spectrum of the Brazilian mass media, even if repeatedly spoken of their decline. In the 1960s and 1970s awoke both at home and abroad, the scientific interest in " Cordel ". There are now numerous literary and social scientific work on this genus. The Ibero -American Institute has a large collection of " Cordel " - tacking. Current " Cordel " texts can be found on the internet.