The Arbëresh Identity through the Myth of Language and Culture in the Poetic Creativity of Giuseppe Schirò Di Maggio

Abstract

Giuseppe Schirò Di Maggio, one of the leading figures of the contemporary Arbëresh literature, is the most mature voice and the most productive poet of all nowadays Arbëresh poets. He is an author who uses the bilingual verse in Albanian and Italian languages with an extraordinary ability, settling in perfect harmony his poetries, which have artistic independence in each language and are original reproductions in both corresponding languages. In this regard, plays an important role even its culture, interlaced simultaneously with two traditions, the Italian and the Arbëresh, and certainly his proficiency in both Italian and Albanian languages. In this article we aim the identification of the themes and the main motives in the poetic creativity of the author, which refer to the most important aspects of the Arbëresh community, and also to the human universal aspects, avoiding themes and motives dealing with more detailed or less significant aspects. Eventually, we did no try to remain in a simple thematic presentation during the identification of the main themes that permeate the poetic creativity of Giuseppe Schirò Di Maggio. We tried to get into the history, into the mentality and into the culture of the Arbëresh community, because to determine the literature themes it does not mean to separate it from the history, but to give the deserved position to the history of the mentality, the customs, the ideology, and the manner of time and space perception.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2016.v5n2p131