France Prešeren[ii] (pronounced [fɾanˈtsɛ pɾɛˈʃeːɾn] ⓘ) (3 December 1800 – 8 February 1849) was a 19th-century Romantic[3] Slovene poet whose poems have been translated into many languages.

He learned Latin, Ancient Greek, and German, which was then the language of education, administration, and high culture in most areas inhabited by Slovenes.

[citation needed] In Ljubljana, Prešeren's the poet Valentin Vodnik encouraged him to develop his literary skills in Slovene.

In Vienna, he studied the western canon including Homer, Goethe, Dante, and the Italian trecentists, especially Petrarch and Boccaccio.

He also read contemporary Romantic poets, and he was fired from a teaching post at Klinkowström's Jesuit institute for having lent a booklet of banned poetry to his friend Anastasius Grün.

[citation needed] After acquiring a law degree in 1828, he returned to Ljubljana, where he was employed as an assistant in the firm of the lawyer Leopold Baumgartner.

In the spring of 1833, in the morning of 6 April, Easter Saturday, he supposedly met Julija Primic, the daughter of a rich merchant, who would become the unfulfilled love of his life.

[17] 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.

Prešeren supported Ana financially and treated her as his rightful mate, but engaged in several other love affairs at the same time.

However, it was published only in 1830, in the literary almanac Krajnska čbelica (The Carniolan Bee), established the same year by the librarian Miha Kastelic in Ljubljana.

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.

Between 1830 and 1835, Prešeren composed his esthetically most accomplished poems, which were inspired by the setbacks in his personal life, especially by his unrequited 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.

The poem was recognized as a masterpiece by Matija Čop, but it did not gain much recognition beyond the small circle around the journal Krajnska čbelica.

Another important work from this period are the "Sonnets of Misfortune" (Sonetje nesreče), which were first drafted already in 1832, but were published in the 4th volume of Krajnska čbelica only in July 1834, with some changes.

Following his best friend's death, Prešeren wrote the epic-lyric poem The Baptism on the Savica (Krst pri Savici), dedicating it to Čop.

In 1837, Prešeren met Emil Korytko, a Polish political activist from Galicia, confined by the Austrian authorities to Ljubljana.

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 Slovene and the publishing of Anton Tomaž Linhart's comedy Matiček's Wedding which had been prohibited as "politically inappropriate" 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.

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.

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.

His fervent, heartfelt lyrics, intensely emotional but never merely sentimental, have made him the chief representative of the Romantic school in Slovenia.