What is a saga? Famous literary and cinematic sagas

In this article we will understand what a saga is, find out where it came from in our and world culture and what impact it has.

The concept

Of course, the word "saga" did not come to us from the authors of the sensational story about vampires. It originated long before that. His homeland is the distant Iceland of 13-14 centuries. A saga is a form that summarizes literary works of a narrative nature that were recorded hundreds of years ago.

The word comes from Old Norse "legend", and the age of sagas was in about 900-1030. Initially, these were oral narratives transmitted from the older generation to the young. Then they were recorded.

From the point of view of literary criticism, a saga is a collection of literary works recorded in Scandinavia at the indicated time.

In the modern world, another meaning of this word has appeared both in literature and in cinema. Usually these are life stories that have taken a definite form and are similar in their epic or content to the original source.

The modern generation should well understand what a saga is, because now it is a common genre phenomenon.

Principle

In the original saga, the canon of the narrative has always been strictly observed. It began with the presentation of all the heroes, however, several generations were sometimes described before the main character appeared. Everything was important: who is whose husband, the names of all children and distant relatives, their occupation and so on.

Many sagas began their story from the moment of the emergence of statehood in Iceland (Scandinavia). For this genre was characterized by a huge number of characters. There were so many of them that you can easily get confused and generally lose the thread of the story.

The chronology of sagas is strictly sustained. You can always understand what period of time we are talking about. In the works you can often find fantastic elements (for example, the fight against the undead, ghosts). Not enough attention is paid to relations, compared to later literature.

Varieties

To understand what a saga is is impossible without acquaintance with Old Icelandic monuments of literature. Traditionally, they were divided into several cycles depending on the time and subject.

Here are the best sagas of that period:

1. Sagas about Icelanders (narration of relations within and between the clan):

• The Saga of Nyala;
• The Saga of Egil;
• The Saga of the People from Salmon Valley, etc.

2. Sagas about ancient times (based on myths and tales of the North European peoples):

• "The Welsung Saga";
• The Yngling Saga.

3. Transfer sagas (tell about events outside their native land):

• The Trojan Saga;
• "The saga of the Romans."

4. Sagas about kings (since Iceland was a country without monarchical power, narratives about the history of Norway and Denmark were included in this cycle):

• Knightling Saga;
• "The Saga of Olav Tryggvason".

5. Sagas about bishops (narrate about the history of the Catholic Church).

6. Sagas about recent events (works about the brutal and bloody era of the Sturlungs).

Literary sagas

Most authors, including the word "saga" in the title of their work, imply that this is the story of one large family, possibly over several generations.

Modern literary criticism includes such a thing as a family saga. It implies that the history of the origin, development or withering of one family occurs against the background of some world or political events in the country, some external factor. If you look at examples of such works, and even more so read them, then it will be very simple to understand what a saga is in literature.

Here are some family sagas of Russian and foreign authors:

• The Forsyte Saga is a monumental work by Galsworthy, a Nobel Prize winner, consists of five cycles and tells of several generations of the Forsyth family.
• "Quiet Don" is a work of the Nobel laureate M. Sholokhov, in the center of the plot of which is the Melekhov family.
• "Buddenbrooks. The story of the death of one family" - a family chronicle from the classic of German literature Thomas Mann.
• The Eternal Call is a landmark work by Anatoly Ivanov, spanning several decades. The plot focuses on the Savelyevs family.
• “Singing in Blackthorns” - C. McCullough wrote an amazing book that became a hymn to all-consuming love. The plot focuses on the story of the Maggie Cleary family.
• "The Gloom River" is a work of the Russian author Vyacheslav Shishkov, who described the fate of three generations of the Gromov family.

Cinematic Sagas

What is the saga in the movie, probably everyone knows. Every year, exciting films with an intricate plot go out onto wide screens, in the center of which is some kind of family history.

So, the most interesting movie sagas:

1. Star Wars is a fantastic epic that includes seven films.
2. "Taste of Sunshine" - a film directed by Istvan Szabo tells about three generations of the Sonnenshine Jewish family.
3. “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” are not in need of an introduction to the saga of Middle-earth.
4. "Twilight" - the notorious vampire saga, which conquered millions of viewers around the world.
5. "Divergent" is a dystopian film based on the book of the same name.

In fact, understanding what a saga is is not so difficult. The main thing is to understand its basic principles.