Poetry
Il-Ġifen Tork
Not translated into English
Giovanni Antonio Vassallo · 1842
Synopsis
An epic in Maltese drawn from a real event in the island's history: the adventure of a Turkish ship, made of courage and bloodshed, centred on a vow made to the Marian sanctuary of Mellieħa. The poem brings on gilded galleys, women at work, ambassadors put to death and a corsair, and mixes the poet's freedom with the truth of the facts, to the point that the historian Liam Gauci was able to ask what the narrative owes to each.
Context
Published in 1842, the epic is held to be the first written in Maltese and remains the longest narrative poem by its author. It has been translated into Esperanto under the title La Turka Ĉefgalero. Oliver Friggieri, in 2013, bringing together Vassallo's poems for the first time, preceded it with a long study and annotated it extensively. In 2018, a lecture of the Academy of the Maltese Language was still devoted to the share of historical truth and poetic truth in the narrative.
Who it is for
A long narrative poem in Maltese, best read in Oliver Friggieri's annotated edition.
Prizes and reception
The history of Maltese literature regards it as the first epic in the language, published in 1842.
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