France Prešeren
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France Prešeren (December 3, 1800 - February 8, 1849) was a Slovenian poet. His name is sometimes Germanized as "Franz Prescheren", especially in older documents from the time the area of today's Slovenia was ruled by the Habsburgs.
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[edit] Early life and education
He was born in the village of Vrba, then Habsburg empire, today Slovenia, to a rural family. His mother wanted him to become a priest, but he never went into clergy. He studied philosophy and later law at the university in Vienna. After acquiring a Dr. iur., he got employed as an assistant at a law firm in the provincial Austrian capital of Laibach (today known as Ljubljana). He never managed to become an independent lawyer.
[edit] Writings
He wrote poems in his spare time. His most famous work, Sonetni Venec (A Garland of Sonnets) was directly inspired by his unhappy love for Julija Primic (Germanized "Julia Primitz") and the death of his close friend, the poet Matija Čop (Matthias Tschop). Understandably, many of the verses in this work are full of bittersweet passions. Sonetni Venec was written in an interesting format: the last line of one sonnet becomes the first line of the next, making all fourteen sonnets in the collection an intertwining "garland" of emotional lyricism; one sonnet cannot exist without the other. The first lines of the fourteen sonnets form another sonnet, and the first letters of these lines form the words "Primicovi Julji", "to Julija Primic".
Around 1836 Prešeren finally acknowledged that his love for Julija would never be returned. Though he would later go on to marry Ana Jelovšek, Prešeren confessed upon his deathbed that he never forgot Julija.
The seventh stanza of Prešeren's poem Zdravljica (A Toast) has been the Slovenian national anthem since 1991. His poems were translated into several languages; as well, he often wrote in German. When some of his poems were first published in the newspaper, they were printed in both Slovenian and German versions, which further proves his poetical genius.
[edit] Reputation
He is considered to be the leading poet of Slovenian poetry, acclaimed not only nationally or regionally, but also according to the standards of developed European literature. Prešeren was one of the greatest European Romanticists. His fervent, heartfelt lyrics, intensely emotional but never merely sentimental, have made him the chief representative of the Romantic school in Slovenia.
[edit] Death
He died on February 8, 1849 in Kranj, Slovenia. The 8th of February is now called Prešeren Day and is the Slovenian Cultural Holiday. Prešeren formerly appeared on the Slovenian 1000 tolar banknote, and his image is on the two-euro coin minten in Slovenia. Prešeren Square in Ljubljana contains a statue of the poet which forever gazes on a bas-relief of Julija high on the wall of a building across the square.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Preseren.net - biographical data, texts of most his poems in Slovenian, English and German language
- Poem in Wikisource
- Slovene euro coins
