page_title: Albanian literature
section_title: Early Modern period
hierarchical_section_title: Albanian literature / Early Modern period
caption_attribution_description: Picture of old books. Basking Ridge Historical Society View Large on Black See where this picture was taken. [][?]
context_page_description: Albanian literature stretches back to the Middle Ages and comprises those literary texts and works written in the Albanian language. It may also refer to literature written by Albanians in Albania, Kosovo and the Albanian diaspora particularly in Italy. The Albanian language occupies an independent branch within the Indo-European family and does not have any other closely related language. The origin of the Albanian language is not entirely known, but it may be a successor of the ancient Illyrian language.
  The Archbishop of Antivari Guillaume Adam wrote a report in 1332 in which he said that Albanians used Latin letters in their books although their language was quite different from the Latin language.
  The oldest surviving documents written in Albanian are the "formula e pagëzimit" recorded by Pal Engjëlli, Bishop of Durrës in 1462 in the Gheg dialect, and some New Testament verses from that period.
context_section_description: One of the results of the influence of Islam and particularly Sufism orders, and the culture of the invader, was the emergence of a school of poetry during the 18th century, or of a literature written in Albanian language but by means of an Arabic alphabet. Its authors such as Nezim Frakulla, Muhamet Kyçyku, Sulejman Naibi, Hasan Zyko Kamberi, Shahin and Dalip Frashëri, Sheh Mala, and others dealt in their works with motifs borrowed from Oriental literature, wrote religious texts and poetry in a language suffocated by orientalisms and developed religious lyric and epic. The Poetry of the Bejtexhinj was strongly influenced by Turkish, Persian and Arabic literary models in fashion at the time both in Istanbul and the Middle east. Most of the genres and forms prevalent in Turkish and Persian verse are to be encountered in Albanian. There are either as isolated poems or within the divans: the murabba', quatrain; the ilahi, religious hymns; the qaside, the longer panegyric odes favoured by the Arabs; and the ghazal, shorter poems, often love lyrics which were favoured by the Turks and Persians. The subject matter was often religious, either meditatively intimate or openly didactic, serving to spread the faith. The speculative character of much of this verse derived its inspiration from the currents of Islam: from Sunnite spirituality to the intense mystical spheres of Shi'ite Sufism and later, to the more liberal, though equally mystical reflections of Bektashi pantheism. Secular verses occur as well: love lyrics, nature poetry and historical and philosophical verse.
  The first major poet among the bejtexhinj was Nezim Frakulla (1680–1760) who wrote his first poetry in Turkish, Persian and Arabic including two divans. Between 1731 and 1735 he composed a divan and various other poetry in Albanian, as well as an Albanian- Turkish dictionary in verse form. His divan include verse ranging from panegyrics on local pashas and military campaigns, to odes on friends and patrons, poems on separation from and longing for his friends and lovers, description of nature in the springtime, religious verse, and in particular, love lyrics.
  Another famous bejtexhinj is Hasan Zyko Kamberi who was one of the most commanding representatives of the Muslim tradition in Albanian literature, through his main work, a 200-page mexhmua (verse collection). Kamberi's secular verse covers a wide range of themes.
caption: Old Bejtexhinj divans
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