The Maltese heroic fairytale

Abstract

" [Q}uel que soit le niveau d'interpretation que l 'on choisisse, un fait demeure certain, c 'est l 'interet generalise pour les contes. Devant un phenomene aussi universe!, aussi permanent, on touche, en verite, un des ressorts profonds de l'etre humain." (G. Morcos) "The analysis of oral literature shows us in effect that there are no societies without narrative discourses, that the typology of those discourses is possible. "That is really the definition of narrativity: discourse, whether it be poetic or not, consists of a certain number of manipulations of contents which in fact are the beginning of a very deep discoursive syntax ... "Mythical stories appear to be what they really are: answers, in a narrative and figurative mode, to the great philosophical interrogations of humanity. '' (A. J. Greimas) Folk-narrative research has up to now developed so many different approaches to its material, that it is almost a matter of taste which one of these approaches one considers the most important. Moreover, Antonino Buttitta, the foreign supervisor to my work, in his seminal comments on folktale studies in general, way back in 1977, concluded: Per i linguisti in principio era la lingua, per i mitologi i miti, per gli indianisti !'India, per gli evoluzionisti l'evoluzione, per gli psicoanalisti l'inconscio, e in tutto questo fantasticare alla ricerca delle inarrivabili origini delle fiabe, si finiva con il perdere di vista l'oggetto della disputa cioe la fiaba. This was confirmed seven years later by Bengt Holbek: Speaking as a folklorist, the first thing I have to say is that there has not been much of a folkloristic quest for meaning within [the] ... field [of fairytales] until now. A perusal of the papers presented at similar conferences in the past, from that in Kiel and Copenhagen in 1959 right down to that in Edinburgh twenty years later, shows that we have been concerned with everything but meaning ... There is no folkloristic theory of meaning to help us get started. To put it frankly: we may, as a group, be very good at documenting, describing and comparing - folklorists like to be very close to their material - but we are not so hot on theory. [...]

Note: Hard copy is available as part of George and Marlene Mifsud Chircop collection in the Archives & Rare Books collection