ABSTRACT This essay reads H. Rider Haggard's adaptation of the Icelandic Sagas, Eric Brighteyes, as an ultimately unsuccessful imaginative flight from modernity. Haggard simplifies the saga model to create a fictional world free of what he sees as modernity's complexity and corruption. However, this anti-modern vision of the past is consistently undercut by the very ambiguities Haggard seeks to avoid. The titular protagonist of the novel is an equivocal hero whose adventures can be described as a series of betrayals and failures. He is a mighty warrior, but is unable to control his capacity for violence; a romantic lover, but is unable to repress his carnal proclivities; a hyper-masculine figure who wavers between assertive heteronormative behaviour and a homosocial identity; and a fatalist unable to resign himself to his destiny. Haggard's fictional saga-world is a modern, transitional space in which religious and social ideals are under increasing pressure.

中文翻译：

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“简单而英勇的生活”：H. Rider Haggard 未实现的北欧愿景

摘要 本文将 H. Rider Haggard 改编自冰岛传奇的 Eric Brighteyes 视为对现代性的一次失败的富有想象力的逃避。Haggard 简化了传奇模型，创造了一个虚构的世界，摆脱了他所认为的现代性的复杂性和腐败。然而，这种对过去的反现代观点一直被哈格德试图避免的模棱两可的东西所削弱。小说的名义主人公是一个模棱两可的英雄，他的冒险经历可以被描述为一系列的背叛和失败。他是一个强大的战士，但无法控制自己的暴力能力；一个浪漫的情人，却无法抑制自己的肉欲；一个在自信的异性恋行为和同性恋身份之间摇摆不定的超级男性形象；和无法接受命运的宿命论者。