Slovene literature is the
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
written in
Slovene. It spans across all literary genres with historically the
Slovene historical fiction Slovene historical fiction in form of historical tale (''zgodovinska povest'') or historical novel ('':sl:zgodovinski roman, zgodovinski roman'') is besides rural story the central national constitutive genre.
Epic poem
Slovene historical narrati ...
as the most widespread
Slovene fiction genre. The Romantic 19th-century
epic poetry
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
written by the leading name of the Slovene
literary canon
The term canon derives from the Greek (), meaning "rule", and thence via Latin (language), Latin and Old French into English. The concept in English usage is very broad: in a general sense it refers to being one (adjectival) or a group (noun) of ...
,
France Prešeren
France Prešeren () (2 or 3 December 1800 – 8 February 1849) was a 19th-century Romantic Slovene poet whose poems have been translated into many languages. , inspired virtually all subsequent Slovene literature.
Literature played an important role in the development and preservation of the Slovene identity because the Slovene nation did not have its own state until 1991 after the Republic of Slovenia emerged from the breakup of
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
.
Poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
,
narrative prose,
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
,
essay
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...
, and
criticism
Criticism is the construction of a judgement about the negative qualities of someone or something. Criticism can range from impromptu comments to a written detailed response. , ''"the act of giving your opinion or judgment about the good or bad q ...
kept the Slovene language and culture alive, allowing - in the words of Anton Slodnjak - the Slovenes to become a real nation, particularly in the absence of masculine attributes such as
political power
In social science and politics, power is the social production of an effect that determines the capacities, actions, beliefs, or conduct of actors. Power does not exclusively refer to the threat or use of force (coercion) by one actor against ...
and
authority
In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The N ...
.
Early literature
![Ivan Grohar - Sejalec](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Ivan_Grohar_-_Sejalec.jpg)
There are accounts that cite the existence of an
oral literary tradition that preceded the Slovene written literature. This was mostly composed of
folk songs
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has be ...
and also prose, which included tales of
myth
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...
s,
fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
s, and
narration
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to storytelling, convey a narrative, story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deli ...
s.
First written text
The earliest documents written in the Old Slovene are the
Freising manuscripts
The Freising manuscriptsAlso ''Freising folia'', ''Freising fragments'', or ''Freising monuments''; german: Freisinger Denkmäler, la, Monumenta Frisingensia, sl, Brižinski spomeniki or are the first Latin-script continuous text in a Slavic ...
(''Brižinski spomeniki''), dated between 972 and 1022, found in 1803 in
Freising
Freising () is a university town in Bavaria, Germany, and the capital of the Freising ''Landkreis'' (district), with a population of about 50,000.
Location
Freising is the oldest town between Regensburg and Bolzano, and is located on the Is ...
, Germany. This book was written for the purpose of spreading Christianity to the
Alpine Slavs The settlement of the Eastern Alps region by early Slavs took place during the 6th to 8th centuries.
It is part of the southward expansion of the early Slavs which would result in the characterization of the South Slavic group, and would ultimatel ...
and contained terms concerned with the institutions of authority such as ''oblast'' (authority), ''gospod'' (lord), and ''rota'' (oath).
First books
The first printed books in Slovene were ''
Catechismus
''Catechismus in der windischenn Sprach'' or simply ''Catechismus'' (Catechism, also known as or simply in modern Slovene), is a book written by the Slovene Protestant preacher Primož Trubar in 1550. Along with Trubar's 1550 book, '' Abecedar ...
'' and ''
Abecedarium
An abecedarium (also known as an abecedary or ABCs or simply an ABC) is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria (or abecedaries) are practice exercises.
Non-Latin alphabe ...
'', written by the
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
reformer
Primož Trubar
Primož Trubar or Primus Truber () (1508 – 28 June 1586) was a Slovene Protestant Reformer of the Lutheran tradition, mostly known as the author of the first Slovene language printed book, the founder and the first superintendent of the Prote ...
in 1550 and printed in
Schwäbisch Hall
Schwäbisch Hall (; "Swabian Hall"; from 1802 until 1934 and colloquially: ''Hall'' ) is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg located in the valley of the Kocher river, the longest tributary (together with its headwater Lein) of the ...
. Based on the work by Trubar, who from 1555 until 1577 translated into Slovene and published the entire
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
,
Jurij Dalmatin
Jurij Dalmatin ( – 31 August 1589) was a Slovene Lutheran minister, reformer, writer and translator. He translated the complete Bible into Slovene.
Life
Born in Krško, Dalmatin came from a Dalmatian family. Until the age of 18, he studied ...
translated the entire Bible into Slovene from c. 1569 until 1578 and published it in 1583. In the second half of the 16th century, Slovene became known to other European languages with the multilingual dictionary, compiled by
Hieronymus Megiser
Hieronymus Megiser (c.1554 in Stuttgart – 1618 or 1619 in Linz, Austria) was a German polymath, linguist and historian.
Career
From 1571 he studied at the University of Tübingen, and was a favourite student of the humanist and philologist N ...
. Since then each new generation of
Slovene writers has contributed to the growing
corpus
Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to:
Linguistics
* Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts
* Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files
* Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics
Music
* ...
of texts in Slovene. Particularly,
Adam Bohorič
Adam Bohorič () ( – after 20 November 1598) was a Slovene Protestant preacher, teacher and author of the first grammar of Slovene.
Bohorič was born in the market town of Reichenburg in the Duchy of Styria (now Brestanica in Slov ...
's ''Arcticae horulae'', the first Slovene grammar, and
Sebastjan Krelj's ''Postilla Slovenska'', became the bases of the development of Slovene literature.
Historical periods
Middle Ages
Folk poetry
Protestant reformation
Counter-reformation
Baroque
Age of Enlightenment
1830–1849
1849–1899
Fin-de-siecle
This period encompasses 1899–1918.
Late realism
1918–1941
1918–1926
1918–1930
1930–1941
1941–1945
1945–1990
Neo-realism
Intimism
Intimism ( sl, intimizem) was a poetic movement, the main themes of which were love, disappointment and suffering and the projection of poet's inner feelings onto nature. Its beginner is
Ivan Minatti, who was followed by
Lojze Krakar
Lojze Krakar (21 February 1926 – 24 December 1995) was a Slovene poet, translator, editor, literary historian, and essayist. He also wrote poetry for children.
Krakar was born in Semič in White Carniola in 1926. He studied Slavic languages ...
. The climax of Intimism was achieved in 1953 with a collection of poetry titled ''
Poems of the Four'' (), written by
Janez Menart
Janez Menart () (29 September 1929 – 22 January 2004) was a Slovene poet, best known for his Intimism (Slovene poetry), Intimist poetry. He translated a number of classic French poetry, French and English poetry and drama wor ...
,
Ciril Zlobec,
Kajetan Kovič
Kajetan Kovič (21 October 1931 – 7 November 2014) was a Slovene poet, writer, translator, and journalist. In 1978, he received the Prešeren Award, the highest artistic award in Slovenia, for his poetry collection ''Labrador.''
Life
Kovič ...
and
Tone Pavček
Tone Pavček (; 29 September 1928 – 21 October 2011) was one of the most influential Slovene poets, translators, and essayists from the first post-war generation. He published numerous collections of poetry, well received by readers and cri ...
. An often neglected female counterpart to the four was
Ada Škerl
Ada Škerl (3 April 1924, in Ljubljana – 29 May 2009, in Maribor) was a Slovene poet, writer and translator from French.
Life
Ada Škerl was born on 3 April 1924, in Ljubljana. During the Second World War, she was a member of the Liberation Fr ...
, whose subjective and pessimistic poetic sentiment was contrary to the post-war revolutionary demands in the
People's Republic of Slovenia
The Socialist Republic of Slovenia ( sl, Socialistična republika Slovenija, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Socijalistička Republika Slovenija, Социјалистичка Република Словенија), commonly referred to as Sociali ...
.
Modernism
Postmodernism
Post 1990
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slovene Literature
Slovene language