OAR@UM Collection:https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/275762024-03-19T10:14:45Z2024-03-19T10:14:45ZDun Karm tra Neoclassicismo e Romanticismohttps://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/277082018-03-07T02:27:06Z1978-01-01T00:00:00ZTitle: Dun Karm tra Neoclassicismo e Romanticismo
Abstract: In this article, Oliver Friggieri talks about Karm Psaila (1871-1961), a highly regarded Maltese poet who represents contemporary Maltese poetry. The author, explains Dun Karm Psaila's childhood and education, emphasizing on the fact that the Italian language and Latin were considered as two important school subjects at the time. This propelled Karm Psaila to continue his education in Italian. Later, in fact, he became a professor of language and of Italian literature at the major seminary. Oliver Friggieri continues on the article by explaining to us readers that Dun Karm Psaila's writings were often changing and evolving, especially when in the late 1800's and early 1900's, Malta was going through a political crisis, including the 'Language Question'. Before 1912 Dun Karm wrote only in Italian. However later on, he starts writing poems in the Maltese language as well. For Dun Karm Psaila, writing in Maltese, as well as in Italian, meant (i) to conserve an Italian identity, but above all adapt it according to the popular and environmental needs, and (ii) create romantically, that is according to the dictates of the heart and no more than the calculating reason.
Dun Karm's works also give voice to his country's collective aspirations. His poetry reflects a background of village life crowned with an atmosphere of family feelings and it also portrays the Maltese countryside with a perspective imagination. It synthesises the popular culture of the Maltese people, which is quite evident from the rural characteristics that furnish its local identity with the literary culture based largely on Italian romanticism. Indeed, when he decided to make Maltese the medium of his creativity, Dun Karm poetically explored the history of Malta to confirm its cultural and national identity.1978-01-01T00:00:00ZFurther comments on Peter Caxaro's Cantilenahttps://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/276332018-03-06T02:22:13Z1978-01-01T00:00:00ZTitle: Further comments on Peter Caxaro's Cantilena
Abstract: The author examines the literary value and significance the poem holds in and bears on the history of the Maltese language. This poem serves to shed some light on the Maltese spoken 500 years ago, on the concrete versus abstract thinking of the populace, reality against illusion and moreover the trend of the fifteenth century Maltese poetry towards
Romance rather than Semitic patterns.1978-01-01T00:00:00ZAntonio Cremona folklorista (1880-1972)https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/276242018-10-22T11:40:45Z1978-01-01T00:00:00ZTitle: Antonio Cremona folklorista (1880-1972)
Abstract: A Commemorative speech pronounced on 4 January 1973 at the Hotel Excelsior, Valletta, on the occasion of the IX Congress of Mediterranean Studies of the International Academy of the Mediterranean. G. Cassar-Pullicino gives a speech on the 1 year death anniversary of the late Antonio Cremona and his works on the Maltese language and heritage.
Description: Commemorative speech pronounced on 4 January 1973 at the Hotel Excelsior, Valletta, on the occasion of the IX Congress of Mediterranean Studies of the International Academy of the Mediterranean.1978-01-01T00:00:00ZReflections about the old Maltese folk belief in the transformation of a person into a Gawgaw ghost on Christmas Evehttps://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/276232018-03-06T02:22:05Z1978-01-01T00:00:00ZTitle: Reflections about the old Maltese folk belief in the transformation of a person into a Gawgaw ghost on Christmas Eve
Abstract: The Maltese scholar Joseph Cassar-Pullicino mentioned in the 'Studies in Maltese Folklore' (1976, 225) a belief, that persons who were born on Christmas eve were doomed to be transformed once a year on this day, while they were asleep, into a ghost called 'Gawgaw'. In this form they wandered about frightening people with their groanings. Similar beliefs were recorded in other islands like Sicily, and in particular Chios. It should be interesting to investigate whether they are also known in the Italian and Greek mainlands. However during its history Malta had also close cultural ties with the Arab world. Although the political domination of the Arabs had already come to an end by the beginning of the eleventh century, Moslem domestic slaves have obviously played an important role for the survival of eastern concepts during the following centuries. In fact, the author shall point out noteworthy customs and imaginings from Arab and North European folklore in this paper.1978-01-01T00:00:00Z