The idealized nation-mother of the romantics and the status quo

Abstract

One of the key metaphors in the construction of the Maltese national imaginary through literature was that of the nation-mother who served as a conservative reference point to the male writers and the national family. She is essentially a construct of the patriarchal society that shaped most pre-Independence Maltese prose and poetry. The traditional family of that literature is a closed unit with well-defined roles assigned to the members of the in-groups, whether or not they like it. and with a clear theocentric centre. Like the static mother who is subservient to the strict father and is expected to execute his decisions, Malta is plitically subservient to the colonial master and morally subservient to the patriarchal Catholic Church.