Albanian Literary Schools

Sabri Hamiti ALBANIAN LITERARY SCHOOLS

Translated by Dr. Muhamet Hamiti

A. THE SCHOOLS

During its five centuries of existence, the Albanian literature has shaped itsartistic identity and consolidated its constants and transformations along the way.Through time, its structural characteristics have changed, either in terms of internalliterary developments, or in terms of its relations with non-literary contexts.Literary Schools (Teachings, Doctrines) are structural and semanticmanifestations of this literature, which become prevailing features for the writingand literary works of the major authors of the periods, as well as literary consciousness.These literary schools stand out as identifiable by virtue of certain features andqualities of the literary text:1. The structure of literary discourses, the thematic codes, the literary forms,the function and the status of the literary text;2. The major writers and their important works, which exhibit thecharacteristic features of the school;3. The authors, who, at the theoretical level, succeed in legitimizing thecharacteristics of a school; and4. The rhetorical and poetical figure (figures), which denote a type of writingand may become its emblem.On the basis of this research work, we recognize the following schools in thebody of Albanian literature from its outset to this day:1.

The Philo-Biblical School;

2.

The Romantic School;

3.

The Critical School;

4.

The Modern School;

5.

The Socialist Realism School;

6.

The Dissident School;

7.

The Modern School (Kosova).

Their characteristic features will be introduced below.

1. The Philo-Biblical School

With this literary school, the Albanian literary text is in fact a derivative of theBiblical text, which is universal; hence, the characteristic denomination

Philo-Biblical

. Moreover, the literary texts are usually incorporated with the Christian

doctrinarian books, thus producing a different picture of the given doctrine. Theauthor is designate, but its status mutates from translator to re-creator to creator inits own right.The discourse is interwoven according to a pattern of rhetoric and the ChristianBiblical morality. Likewise, the dominant topics are Biblical (the Old Testamentand the New Testament). Both the figures (personas) and the poetical figuresfollow a Biblical pattern. The literary forms materialize in verse, in the form of applied poetry and occasional poetry, and, in prose fiction with a didactic andmoral character. What is original here is the authorial bit, which in reality is a crack of thesystem, while the exterior rebellion of the author is an opposition to foreigndomination over the Albanian world. On top of this, original are here also somerare derivatives of the Albanian subjects, the topique, first and foremost the figureof the text, which is by all means bound by and born to the Albanian phrase and itsethos. Part of this is also the meter, when it is trochaic Octosyllable, dominant inthe body of traditional Albanian verse.The greatest authors of this school are the following:Pjetër Budi (1566-1622), who, in his works

Doktrina e kërshtenë

(1618) [TheChristian Doctrine] e

Pasqyra e të rrëfyemit

(1621) [The Mirror of Confession]composed over three thousand Octosyllabic verses, grouped in quatrains, withBiblical subjects and figures, but also with Albanian matters and using a self-taught Albanian. The Octosyllable and the quatrain become a norm of writing in Budi’spoetry, excepting once when this Octosyllable appears redoubled.Pjetër Bogdani (1630-1689), in his

Cuneus Prophetarum

(Çeta e profetëve)interposes

Kangët e Sibilave

[The Songs of Sibyls], which presage the coming of Christ (i.e., poetry is at the service of the Christian doctrine), thus producing acultivated literary verse, the eleven syllable verse, and the form of

stanza

with aregular rhyme scheme. Bogdani Albanianizes the sibyls through the namingprocess, whereas the poetical figures through the Albanian topique and the Albanian idiomatic figure. In his work we also come across a pure cosmogonicpoem,

Krijimi i Rruzullimit

[The Creation of the Universe], which has anthologicalvalues. Jul Variboba (1724-1788) composes the first pure literary work:

Gjella e Shën Mërisë Virgjër

(1762) [The Life of Saint Virgin Mary]. The work is a poetry collection. While the core of the work consists of two long poems on Saint Mary