I am sure the students at GA Vassallo College do not know anything much about the person their college is named after.
Gan Anton Vassallo was born in Valletta in 1817 and died there in 1868.
In 1839 he entered university and studied law graduating as a lawyer in 1842. However, his bent was always that of studying literature and writing poetry.
In 1863 he was chosen as professor of Italian literature but this appointment caused him psychological stress that debilitated him for the rest of his life. Previously, he was also in charge of the Public Library.
The mid-19th Century was a time when Maltese slowly began to come into its own as the language of the Maltese, overcoming the prevalent use by the educated classes of Italian.
In fact, as was to happen in the next century with Dun Karm, GA Vassallo began writing in Italian and slowly became a writer of Maltese.
As Oliver Friggieri says in his preface, coming from a thorough knowledge of Italian, his patriotic love of all things Maltese led him to appreciate not just Maltese history but also the Maltese language.
The first time he wrote in Maltese was in 1862 when he wrote Il-Gifen Tork, a long and prolix epic poem about the manner in which Maltese slaves on board an Ottoman galleon rose against their captors and freed themselves, running away with the vessel till they reached Malta where they fulfilled their vows to the Madonna.
In those days Maltese was still looked down as a poor language especially when compared to Italian. Perhaps this was the reason why Vassallo, after his high-flown Gifen epic chose to address his poems in Maltese to ordinary Maltese, those who, in those days of illiteracy, could understand if not appreciate his simple Maltese poems.
Obviously, this conscious choice of simple Maltese phrases contrasted heavily with the high-flown rhetoric so loved by Italian authors of his time.
Maybe it was because of his psychological weakness, maybe it was because of his choice to address his Maltese not at the educated Italian-speaking classes but at the public at large who spoke in Maltese, his poems focus mostly on the quite ordinary things of life.
In many of his poems one can visualize life in Malta as experienced in the mid-19th century in Valletta and the Grand Harbour area - the boat excursions (with wine, song and jokes) from Valletta to Kalkara, the youthful yearnings of young men for the girl of their fancy.
In other poems, verging on the tragic, Vassallo draws from his own personal life and comes up with a very pessimistic view of life as a series of sufferings. Many times he mentions a Gannina - it is not known if this person really existed (he never married) or else was a figment of his over-wrought imagination.
Sometimes he emerges from the depths of his despondency to treat love in a romantic ballad such as Dovik u Lieni, or Qronfla lil Luisa.
In other poems he becomes fanciful, such as Kangu u Kaspru, Is-Sinjura Genja u Kangu, Is-Sinjuri Peppia u Margarita, Is-Sur Mikelinu u Censa, or even Il-Qargha Hamra u d-Dolliegha, Il-Gurdien u l-Qattusa, Ix-Xhih u c-Cawla.
But it is in his patriotic verses that he really comes into his own. A rather long epic tells the story of Mannarino, the priest who rebelled against the Knights and was finally freed by Napoleon. And his poem on Grand Master La Vallette who roamed around the city that bears his name and did not find one statue dedicated to him.
And the verses Maltese schoolchildren (used) to know and love:
Int sabiha, o Malta taghna!
Mhux ghax Malti nfahhrek jien;
Issemmik id-dinja kollha,
Maghruf gmielek kullimkien.