As part of its series of research project about Maltese Oral Tradition, the Department of Maltese in the Faculty of Arts presents a public talk in Maltese by Marlene Mifsud Chircop on The Maltese Ballad, L-Għana tal-Fatt. This is the fourth talk in this series.
The talk on Wednesday 23 November starts at 18:00 and is being held in the Faculty of Arts Library, University of Malta Msida Campus. Everyone is welcome to attend. Entrance is free.
Maltese ballads are still sung in present times in Malta and overseas, where Maltese migrants have settled. Dating back five hundred years, many ballads were lost in the first three hundred and fifty years, whereas over two hundred ballads were preserved in the following hundred and fifty years. Marlene Mifsud Chircop shall be talking about research she carried out on this branch of oral tradition, part of the intangible heritage of Maltese għana, especially the extent of street literature (chapbooks) and its production, crime and punishment about which ballad singers sang to their audiences immediately after they happened, styles of introduction and conclusion of ballads, the liminality therein, ballads as a form of protest, their cultural mobility and the case of Ċikku Fenech which she remembers from her early teens.
For more information contact the Department of Maltese at malti.arts@um.edu.mt.