Exile and Nostalgia in Albanian Lyric Poetry since 1750

Abstract

Albanian literature in general – and poetry in particular – has received little scholarly attention outside the Balkans, and yet this literature has much to offer reader and critic alike. Robert Elsie, one of the few Albanologists working in English, has brought attention to Albanian literature by way of several books of translation as well as critical works on politics, culture, history and individual authors. There is as yet no significant body of literary criticism which analyzes broad thematic trends and poetic memes in texts from a variety of periods and places. This essay seeks to serve as a foundation for this kind of synthetic scholarship. Through close readings of poems from the beginnings of Albanian literature to today on the inter-related themes of exile and nostalgia, this work emphasizes the evolution of Albanian attitudes about colonization and independence as they are viewed from at home and in the diaspora.

Keywords

• Albania
• exile
• poetics
• diaspora

References

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