The family saga is a genre of
literature which chronicles the lives and doings of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time. In novels (or sometimes
sequences of novels) with a serious intent, this is often a thematic device used to portray particular historical events, changes of social circumstances, or the ebb and flow of fortunes from a multitude of perspectives.
The word saga comes from
Old Norse, where it meant "what is said, utterance, oral account, notification" and "(structured) narrative, story (about somebody)",[1] and was originally borrowed into English from Old Norse by scholars in the eighteenth century to refer to the Old Norse prose narratives known as sagas.[2][3]
The typical family saga follows generations of a family through a period of history in a series of novels. A number of subgenres of the form exist such as the
AGA saga.
^Dictionary of Old Norse Prose/Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog (Copenhagen: [Arnamagnæan Commission/Arnamagnæanske kommission], 1983–), s.v. '
1 saga sb. f.'.
^"
saw, n.2.", OED Online, 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2019).
^"
saga, n.1.", OED Online, 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2019).