Prešeren, France

Autor: Prešeren, France
Rok: 1800-1849

Biogr./Hist. údaje: Slovinský básník.
Zdroj: Autoritní databáze Národní knihovny ČR

France Prešeren (pronounced [fɾanˈtsɛ pɾɛˈʃeːɾən]) (2 or 3 December 1800 – 8 February 1849) was a 19th-century Romantic Slovene poet, best known as the poet who has inspired virtually all later Slovene literature and has been generally acknowledged as the greatest Slovene classical author. He wrote some high quality epic poetry, for example the first Slovene ballad and the Slovene national epic. After death, he became the leading name of the Slovene literary canon.He tied together the motifs of his own unhappy love with that of an unhappy, subjugated homeland. Especially after World War II in the Slovene Lands, one of Prešeren's motifs, the "hostile fortune", has been adopted by Slovenes as a national myth, and Prešeren has been described being as ubiquitous as the air in Slovene culture.During his lifetime, Prešeren lived in conflict with both the civil and religious establishment, as well as with the provincial bourgeoisie of Ljubljana. He fell victim to severe drinking problems and tried to take his life on at least two occasions, facing rejections and seeing most of his closest friends die tragically. His lyrical poetry dealt with the love towards his homeland, the suffering humanity, as well as his unfulfilled love towards his muse, Julija Primic.Although he wrote in Slovene, some poems were written in German, too. As he lived in Carniola, he at first regarded himself a Carniolan, but gradually took the broader Slovene identity. His poems has been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Slovak, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Bengali, as well as to all the languages of former Yugoslavia, and in 2013 a complete collection of his "Poezije" (Poems) was translated to French.