Oliver Friggieri, Analizi tal-versi tal-Innu Malti. Kunsill Lokali Haz-Zebbug, 2009 49pp.

Oliver Friggieri’s literary productiveness and creativity never cease to amaze me. His bibliography, now printed in his first-rate memoirs/autobiography Fjuri li ma jinxfux, records the titles of the many books and endless articles he has written on practically every literary author in our language. Among these authors, Dun Karm has clearly exercised a great fascination on him. Professor Friggieri has edited Dun Karm’s collected poetry, including his collected verse in Italian, as well as individual pieces like that poet’s masterpiece, Il-Jien un lilhinn minnu, not to mention a staggering number of biographical and literary studies devoted to the old priest/poet who probably owes in some part his continuing high reputation over forty years after his death to Friggieri’s efforts.

In this latest work on Dun Karm, Friggieri has taken the six hendecasyllabic verses forming the lyric of Malta’s National Anthem and subjected them to what is probably the closest analysis a brief poem such as this has received so far in our literature. It is a study unlikely to be devoured by any who are not DunKarmolaters or deeply interested in traditional prosody, and I am puzzled how at a literary evening organized by their Local Council, the good people of ¯ebbug had the patience to hear this learned professor read out this very detailed, academically distinguished but not exactly exciting study. But I forget that Dun Karm was a ¯ebbugi himself and thus venerated by all the people of his village, including those who can recite the verses only of his Innu Malti.

Still, apart from students, scholars and aficionados, many other readers are likely to learn interesting facts from this little book both about the National Anthem and about the poet himself. Dun Karm, we are reminded, was a musician as well as a writer. Some readers will remember how his guitar playing at the Bishop’s Seminary, then at Mdina, gave him a spot of trouble, but fewer will know he could also play the piano. It was this ability that made it easy for him to compose verses that fitted into the music Robert Samut was commissioned to write for a possible anthem, a task he had already carried out. He realized at once that he could fit only three verses into the tune and decided that the verses should be hendecasyllabic – containing eleven syllables.

A good part of Friggieri’s study is practically a seminar on Maltese metrics. He himself, of course, has long been a leading poet, and we now know from his autobiography that he started experimenting with poetic metres when still in primary school. We also know that hendecasyllabic verse remains his great favourite for this own poetry, and in this work he shows very lucidly why, for instance, the first verse in each stanza has a full eleven syllables, whilst the second and third have a feminine ending, with the eleventh syllable being dropped in each case, the strong accent falling on the last syllable whilst in the first verse this accent falls on the penultimate syllable.

Friggieri is painstaking in the way he discusses both main and secondary stresses, and in Dun Karm’s use of caesurae, pauses required in the speaking of the verse. Thus the pause after “helwa” in the first verse, makes the poet’s invocation of Mother Malta more solemn whereas the lack of a caesura in, say, the last verse makes the appeal to God to strengthen unity among the Maltese more pressing.

This last verse, “Seddaq il-ghaqda fil-Maltin u s-sliem”, I have now learned, was different in the first version of the poem published in 1923 where it read, “Seddaq il-ghaqda gewwa Malta u s-sliem”, a weaker version with vague “gewwa Malta” in contrast with the stronger and more personalized “fil-Maltin”. Dun Karm made no change in the fifth verse, but a change is often made by those who sing the anthem. “Rodd il-hniena lis-sid, sahha ‘l haddiem” is often sung as “Rodd il-hniena lis-sid, is-sahha lill-haddiem”, simply because it is easier and more satisfactorily emphatic to sing the verse to Samut’s music in this fashion than in Dun Karm’s text.

There is much more to explore in this short but rich text which should be in the library of all Maltese literature specialists, collectors or scholars. My congratulations to the Ha¿-¯ebbug Local Council for having published this elegant booklet.

Paul Xuereb