A literary saga is made up of several works.
Saga is a concept that can have two different etymological roots. When it comes from the Latin language, it refers to a woman who claims to have the power of divination and performs curses and spells.
The most frequent use of the notion, however, is linked to the German term sage . In this case, a saga can be a text that presents the experiences of several generations of the same family group.
family sagas
There are many family sagas that have managed to become the focus of society's interest. A clear example of this can be the Kennedy saga, which has become one of the most relevant, mysterious and significant in the history of the United States . And not only has there been a member who was president of the country, John Fitzgerald , who was assassinated, but it has always been surrounded by black legends and even scandals of all kinds.
Furthermore, there is talk of the curse of the Kennedy saga as a result of that event and many others that have affected its members: the murder of Robert , the death of John Jr. in a plane crash, the disability suffered by Rosemary, the involvement of Ted on the death of a young woman…
"Terminator" is an example of a film saga.
A set of works
The idea also refers to the legends found in the collections of mythological traditions of Ancient Scandinavia .
From this meaning, today we understand a saga to be a set of works (whether books or movies) that share characters or the main plot . These works, which appear over the years, make up a fictional universe, where events recounted in a work can refer to others narrated in preceding books or films.
The Harry Potter saga
We cannot ignore one of the most important literary and cinematographic sagas of all time, which has gained millions of fans around the world. We are referring to the one starring the young wizard Harry Potter and which was created by the British writer JK Rowling . It is a heptalogy that has later been brought to the big screen with enormous success.
It revolves around the figure of a wizard and orphan boy named Harry who, with the help of his Hogwarts School teachers and his friends ( Ron and Hermione ), must face the evil Lord Voldemort .
The cases of "Millenium" and "Terminator"
An example of a literary saga is "Millenium" , by the Swede Stieg Larsson . The first book in the saga appeared in 2005 and was translated as "The Men Who Didn't Love Women." The second novel was released in 2006 : "The girl who dreamed of a match and a can of gasoline." Finally the saga was completed in 2007 with "The Queen in the Palace of Air Currents" . In this saga, the central protagonists are the journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the hacker Lisbeth Salander , who appear in all three books.
In cinema, an example of a saga is "Terminator" , which is made up of numerous films released between 1984 and 2019 .