Blueish blades of spears, waves turning red from blood. Depiction of Violence in the Modern Literary Adaptations of Old Norse Sagas
2015
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to show that the contemporary writers described violence differently. The first question asked is, what exactly is different, if we compare the way violence is presented in sagas with the scenes of violence in the adaptations.
The second and more important question is, what does these differences tell us about literary tastes of the ancient and modern audience and about attitudes to violence of the ancient and modern man. Three different aspects of violence are described (violence and its variation, violence and emotions and question of brutality) and compared to the way violence is presented in tge modern adaptations of sagas from the various periods of time.