Malta is situated in the centre of the Mediterranean and is a European country. It’s culture has elements of its nearby Mediterranean countries, as well as all of the different countries that have ruled it in the past, before it established its independence in 1964. The national language of the country is Maltese, which is makes use of the Latin alphabet, but English is also its second official language. Also spoken on the island are German, French and Italian which are also taught in schools. The mixture of cultural influences makes the emergence of literature in Malta very interesting.
The oldest known piece of literature is a poem written by Pietru Caxaro called ‘Cantilena’ which is thought to have been written between 1470 and 1485. ‘The Month of May has Arrived, with Roses and Orange Blossoms’ by Gian Francesco Bonamico is a sonnet from the 1600s, and the first dictionary of Maltese words dates back to the same era, created by Francois de Vion Thezan Court; while 1718 saw the first publication of the Lord’s Prayer in Maltese found in Heinrich Maius’s ‘Specimen Lingua Punic in hodierna Melitensium superstitis’. The oldest extant piece of prose is a collection of sermons which were published between 1739 and 1746.
1842 and 1822 saw the first biblical text translation into Maltese, and the first epic poem respectively, which were hugely important for the development of literature. The first Maltese novel was published as late as 1862. ‘Elvira, or the Love of a Tyrant’ was its name and Giuseppe Folliero de Luna, an author from Naples, wrote it.
The diglossia rife in Malta’s history is part of the reason why the emergence of literature in the Maltese language was so slow. The language of Maltese was, for hundreds of years, only seen as fit for the kitchen or the work place; that is, and informal conversational language. The language of the arts and of high society in general was Italian, and so Maltese literature was scarce to begin with.
Among notable Maltese writers there is the poet Rużar Biffa, and Anton Buttigieg the politician/poet who served as Malta’s second president 1976 to 1981. Another well known Maltese artist of was the dramatist/novelist Francis Ebejer.
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