Everything about France Pre Eren totally explained
France Prešeren, also known in the
Germanized version as
Franz Prescheren (1800–1849) was a
Slovene Romantic poet. He is considered the
Slovene national poet. Although he wasn't a particularly prolific author, he inspired virtually all
Slovene literature thereafter.
Biography
Early life and education
He was born
December 3 1800 in the
Upper Carniolan village of
Vrba, then part of the
Habsburg Monarchy (today in
Slovenia), to a relatively well-to-do peasant family. Already as a child, he showed considerable talent, so his parents decided to provide him with a good education. At the age of eight, he was sent to elementary schools in
Grosuplje and
Ribnica, run by the local
Roman Catholic clergy. In 1812, he moved to the
Carniolan provincial capital of
Ljubljana, where he frequented the
State Gymnasium. Already at a very young age, he learned
Latin,
Ancient Greek, as well as
German, which was then the language of education, administration and
high culture in most of the
Slovene Lands. In Ljubljana, Prešeren's talent was spotted by the poet
Valentin Vodnik who encouraged him to develop his literary skills in the Slovene language. As a high school student, he became friends with the future
philologist Matija Čop, who would have an extremely important influence on the development of Prešeren's poetry.
In 1821, Prešeren enrolled at the
University of Vienna, where he studied law, against the wishes of his mother who wanted him to become a
priest. In
Vienna, he became acquainted with the
western canon from
Homer to
Goethe, but he was most fascinated by
Dante and the
Italian trecentists, especially
Petrarch and
Boccaccio. He also read contemporary
Romantic poets, and he was even fired from the teaching post at the
Klinkowström's
Jesuit institute for having lent a booklet of banned poetry to his friend
Anastasius Grün.
Later life
After acquiring a
law degree in 1828, he returned to Ljubljana, where he got employment as an assistant in the firm of the
freethinker ethnic German lawyer Leopold Baumgartner. He was constantly striving to become an independent
lawyer by putting in as many as six applications, but he wasn't successful. In 1832, he shortly moved to
Klagenfurt in the hope of furthering his career, but returned to Ljubljana after less than a year. In the spring of 1833, he met
Julija Primic, the daughter of a rich merchant, who would become the unfulfilled love of his life. Around 1836, Prešeren finally realized that his love for Julija would never become mutual. The same year, he met Ana Jelovšek, with whom he engaged in a permanent relationship. They had three children, but never married. Prešeren supported Ana financially and treated her as his rightful mate, but engaged in several other love affairs at the same time. He also spent a lot of time travelling throughout Carniola, especially to
Lake Bled, from the scenery of which he drew inspiration for his poems. In 1834, he began working as an assistant to his friend Blaž Crobath who gave Prešeren enough free time to engage in his literary activities. In 1846, he was finally allowed to open his own law firm and moved to
Kranj with his family. He died there on
February 8 1849. Upon his deathbed he confessed that he'd never forgotten Julija.
In general, Prešeren's life was an unhappy one. He was confronted with constant rejections, had an unstable sentimental life, and saw most of his closest friends die tragically. He lived in confrontation with both the civil and religious establishment, as well as with the provincial
bourgeoisie of Ljubljana. His talent was far too high to be fully acknowledged by the contemporary culturally backward society of the Slovene Lands. He fell victim to severe
drinking problems and tried to take his life on at least two occasions. The motive of "the hostile fortune" is a frequent one in his works.
Work
Early period
Prešeren's first serious poetic attempts date from his student years in Vienna. In 1824, he wrote some of his most popular poems, still under the influence of
Valentin Vodnik and the rich tradition of Slovenian folk poetry. In 1825, he completed a collection of "Carniolan songs", which he showed to the philologist
Jernej Kopitar. Kopitar was very critical of the young man's literary attempts, so Prešeren destroyed the whole collection. Kopitar's rejection hindered the development of Prešeren's creativity; he didn't publish anything more until 1827, when his satirical poem "To the Maidens" (
Dekletom) was published by the
German language journal
Illyrisches Blatt. In 1828, Prešeren wrote his first important poem,
A Farewell to My Youth. It was however published only in 1830, in the literary journal
Kranjska č'belica ("The Carniolan Bee"), established the same year by the publisher
Miha Kastelic in Ljubljana.
In 1830, Prešeren's old high school friend
Matija Čop returned to Ljubljana and re-established contacts with Prešeren. Čop soon recognized his friend's poetic talent and persuaded him to adopt
Romanic poetic forms. Following Čop's advice, Prešeren would soon become a master of the
sonnet. His poems were noticed by the
Czech scholar
František Čelakovský who published several highly positive critiques of it. Čelakovský's praise was extremely important for Prešeren's self-esteem and gave him the strength to continue in the path on which Čop had orientated him.
The central period
Between 1830 and 1835, Prešeren composed his esthetically most accomplished poems, which were inspired by the setbacks in his personal life, especially by the unhappy love for Julija Primic. Prešeren followed Čop's advice and transformed Julija into a poetic figure, reminiscent of
Dante's Beatrice and
Petrarch's Laura, as can be seen in this first
stanza of his poem
Gazele:
The Wreath of Sonnets
The most important poem from this period is the
crown of sonnets Sonetni Venec ("A Wreath of Sonnets"), written and published in 1834. In it, Prešeren tied together the motives of his own unhappy love with that of an unhappy, subjugated homeland. In the seventh sonnet, Prešeren made something that was later seen as a prophecy of his own glory: referring to the ancient myth of
Orpheus, he invoked the skies to send a new Orpheus to the Slovene people, the beauty of whose poetry would inspire
patriotism, help overcome internal disputes and unify all Slovenes into one
nation again. In the eighth sonnet, he went on in exposing the reasons why such an Orpheus—the metaphor for high culture in general and poetry in particular—had not yet come out from the Slovene Lands. Exposing a decidedly negative vision of
Slovenian history, consisting of nothing but foreign invasions and internal disputes ("the roar of tempests o'er a home unkind"), he maintained that it was the lack of glorious deeds that had hindered the flourishing of poetry. The few flowers of poetry still growing on the Slovenian Parnassus were fed only by tears and sighs:
Besides the complex and sophisticated content, the "Wreath of Sonnets" has an interesting format, too: the last line of one sonnet becomes the first line of the next one, making all fourteen sonnets of the circle an intertwining "garland" of emotional lyricism; one sonnet can't exist without the other. The first lines of all the single fourteen sonnets form in turn another sonnet, called the "Master Theme" or the
Magistrale. In the English translation by
Vivian de Sola Pinto the Master Theme is as follows:
Primicovi Julji, meaning "to Julija Primic". The poem was recognized as a masterpiece by Matija Čop, but it didn't gain much recognition beyond the small circle around the
Kranjska č'belica magazine. Moreover, Julija was unimpressed. Understandably, Prešeren moved to more bitter verses.
The Sonnets of Unhappiness
Another important work from this period are the "Sonnets of Unhappiness" (
Sonetje nesreče), which were first drafted already in 1832, but were published only in 1834, with some changes. They are undoubtedly the most pessimistic of Prešeren's works. It is a group of six (initially seven) sonnets expressing the poet's despair over life. The
first sonnet, in which Prešeren regrets having left his home village, became extremely popular during the late 19th century. Several musical interpretations of the poem have been created, the most famous a
folk rock version by a prominent Slovene musician
Vlado Kreslin. The other sonnets from the circle have not gained such a widespread popularity, but are still considered by scholars to be among Prešeren's most genuine and profound works.
After Čop's death
1835 was Prešeren's
annus horibilis. His closest friend Matija Čop drowned while swimming in the
Sava river, Julija Primic married a wealthy merchant, and Prešeren became alienated from his friend and editor of the
Kranjska č'belica literary magazine
Miha Kastelic. Following Čop's death, Prešeren wrote his
magnum opus,
"The Baptism at the Savica Waterfall"
(
Krst pri Savici), dedicating it to his late friend. The poem, set during the
Christianisation of
Karantanians in the late 8th century, addresses the issues of hope, faith and resignation. The philosopher
Slavoj Žižek interpreted the poem as a paradigmatic example of the emergence of modern
subjectivity.
In 1837, Prešeren met
Emil Korytko, a
Polish political activist from
Galicia, confined by the
Austrian authorities to Ljubljana. Korytko introduced to Prešeren the work of
Adam Mickiewicz, which had an important influence on his later works. The two even jointly translated one of Mickiewicz's poems (
Resygnacja) from Polish to Slovenian and started collecting Slovenian folk songs in Carniola and
Lower Styria. In 1839, Korytko died, leaving Prešeren without an important
interlocutor after Čop's death.
In the autumn of the same year,
Andrej Smole, one of Prešeren's friends from his youth, returned home after many years of living and travelling abroad. Smole was a relatively rich young intellectual from a well-established merchant family, who supported the development of Slovenian culture. The two spent much of the winter of 1839-1840 on Smole's estate in
Lower Carniola, where they planned several cultural and literary projects, including the establishment of a daily newspaper in the Slovenian language and the publishing of
Anton Tomaž Linhart's comedy "Matiček's Wedding" which had been prohibited as "politically unappropriate" in 1790, due to the outbreak of the
French Revolution. Both projects failed: the planned journal
Ilirske novice was blocked by the Viennese censorship, and Linhart's play would be staged only in 1848, without Prešeren's assistance. Smole died suddenly in 1840, literally in Prešeren's arms, while celebrating his 40th birthday. Prešeren dedicated a touching, yet unexpectedly cheerful and
vitalist poem to his late friend.
The later years
After 1840, Prešeren was left without any
interlocutor who could appreciate his works, but continued to write poetry, although much less than in the 1830s. He gradually departed from the typical romantic trend, adopting an increasingly diverse and innovative style. In 1843, an important breakthrough for Prešeren happened:
Janez Bleiweis started publishing a new daily journal in the Slovenian language and invited Prešeren to participate in its cultural section. The two men came from rather different backgrounds: Bleiweis was a moderate conservative and staunch supporter of the ecclesiastical and imperial establishments and alien to the Romantic culture. He nevertheless established a fair relationship with the poet. Prešeren's participation in Bleiweis' editorial project was the closest he'd come to public recognition during his lifetime.
In 1844, he wrote the patriotic poem
Zdravljica ("A Toast"), the most important achievement of his late period. In 1847, a volume of his collected poems was published under the simple title
Poezije dr. Franceta Prešerna ("Poems of Dr. France Prešeren").
Prešeren spent the last two years of his life occupied with private life and his new job as a lawyer in
Kranj. According to some accounts, he was planning several literary projects, including a novel in the
realistic style and an experimental play, but he was struck with liver disease caused by his excessive drinking in prior years. The
revolution of 1848 in the Slovene Lands left him rather indifferent, although it was carried out by the young generation who already saw him as an idol of
democratic and
national ideals. Before his death, he did however redact his
Zdravljica, which was left out from the 1847 volume of poems, and made some minor adjustments for a new edition of his collected poems.
Reception and influence
Today, Prešeren is still considered one of the leading poets of Slovenian literature, 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.
Nevertheless, recognition came slow after his death. It wasn't before 1866 that a real breakthrough in the reception of his role in Slovenian culture took place. In that year,
Josip Jurčič and
Josip Stritar published a new edition of Prešeren's collection of poems. In the preface, Stritar published an essay which is still considered one of the most influential essays in Slovenian history. In it, he showed the esthetic value of Prešeren's work by placing him in the wider European context. From then on, his reputation as the greatest poet in Slovene language was never endangered.
Legacy
Prešeren's legacy in Slovenian culture is enormous. He is generally regarded as the
national poet. In 1905, his monument was placed in the central square in Ljubljana, now called
Prešeren Square. By the early 1920s, all his surviving work had been catalogued and numerous critical editions of his works had been published. Several scholars were already dealing exclusively with the analysis of his work and little was left unknown about his life. In 1944, the anniversary of his death, called
Prešeren Day, was declared as the Slovenian Cultural Holiday. In 1990, the seventh
stanza of his
Zdravljica was declared the
national anthem of Slovenia, replacing the old
Naprej zastava slave. In 1992, his effigy was portrayed on the Slovenian 1000
tolar banknote, and since 2007 his image is on the two-
euro coin minted in Slovenia. The highest Slovenian prize for artistic achievements, the
Prešeren Award, is named after him.
His poems have been translated into several languages, although he still lacks the recognition accorded to some other poets of his rank.
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