Dragotin Kette

Dragotin chain ( born January 19, 1876 in Ilirska Bistrica, † April 26, 1899 in Ljubljana ) was a Slovene poet of Impressionism and Neo- Romanticism.

Together with Josip Murn, Ivan Cankar and Oton Župančič he is considered one of the founders of modern Slovene literature and modernism. In addition, some of his tales, fables and children's poems are internationally known for their translation into several languages ​​today.

Life

Dragotin chain Prem was born near the present town of Carniola part of the city Ilirska Bistrica on January 19, 1876 in the small village. This was at the time of his birth part of Austria-Hungary. His father Filip chain was a teacher and choir director; his mother died already when the boy was four years old.

Chain visited in 1888 the National School of Ljubljana. 1894 presented his maternal uncle, Janez Valenčič that arose school fees for Dragogin Kettes, his payments after his nephew had received a Karzerstrafe because of satirical poems on the Bishop Jakob Missia in a school newspaper. Then chain had to leave high school. He continued his education in Novo mesto, where he successfully completed his Matura exams in 1898.

In Novo mesto he had during his high school years in the daughter of the District Judge, Angela Smola, in love, which he dedicated some of his most expressive poems. Here he made through his entry into the Secret Apprentice Association zadrugas (Cooperative) acquaintance with other young author like Ivan Cankar, Oton Župančič and Josip Murn, introducing new elements in the Slovenian Literature: " due to the socio-political situation, the Slovene no state political importance acknowledged that the literature was regarded as a national task and maintained in conspiratorial clubs or groups. "

After his graduation, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army and ordered to Trieste. Some representations monopolize chain just next to James Joyce, Vladimir Bartol and Umberto Saba as evidence of the cosmopolitan city of Trieste. Dragotin chain saw in Trieste, however, more of a verelendetes social climate, as reflected in his poem Venus of Trieste, in which he portrayed a completely passive image of women. Here he contracted tuberculosis, he died in April of the following year in a small slum on the banks of the river Ljubljanica, an abandoned sugar factory, which was known as Stara Cukrarna in Ljubljana in 1899 at the age of just 23 years. In the last weeks of his life he was cared for by his close friend Josip Murn who was to die from the same disease two years later.

Dragotin chain was buried in the cemetery in the district Žale Bežigrad in Ljubljana. As one 1957 Josip Broz Tito was considering the above-mentioned Stara Cukrana that had been redefined by modern poets to the cultural center, rename modernity in Delavski dom ( home workers ) Slovenske, the Association of Writers of Slovenia successfully turned against it. Because Cukrana had already been a synonym of poverty of Slovenian modernism and should therefore not be replaced by a constructed embossed name. As a compromise, you named a house near by that name.

Work

Chain, leaving only a narrow work of poems and stories for children. Nevertheless, he is next to his friends Ivan Cankar, Oton Župančič and Josip Murn, who supported him in his last months of life, as the founder of modern Slovene literature. Kettes poetry was most influenced by Slovenian folk songs and the authors of the classic, most notably Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine and Prešeren. In addition, this also is extreme by giving preference to the sonnet and maintains a subjective structure in his poetry.

Through his friends he met the French Symbolists and Decadentisten know, especially Paul Verlaine and Maurice Maeterlinck. The latter, however, he refused. Instead, he chose an independent path, similar to that of other neo -romantic tendencies in Europe in the turn of the century.

His best known works include the impressionistic poem trgu Na (On the Square), and a cycle of eight poems, entitled Na Molu San Carlo. Dragogin chain is also known as the author of popular children's literature. He wrote about 25 fairy tales, fables and poems for children, the three most famous The Tale of the cutter and the small scissors or The Zauberscherchen, The Sultan and the dog and the Bee and bumblebee are. These children's literature is widely used today and has been translated into German, Czech, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian and in the Hungarian language.

Unlike his friend Josip Murn chain is already well established as a poet during his lifetime. After his death there were semi-official condolences and the mayor of Ljubljana, Ivan Hribar, accompanied Kettes funeral.

Dragotin Kettes collected poems were published in 1900. The publisher was Anton Aškerc, at that time the principal author of the Slovene language, although he had previously rejected Kettes poems. The preface of the senior colleagues, in which he portrayed himself almost as a patron of the younger poet, was sharply criticized by Ivan Cankar and Oton Župančič. This led to a public debate in which the younger Slovene writer challenged the aesthetic standards of the older writers in the person Aškerc. On the first anniversary of the death Kettes published Ivan Cankar chain in honor of an important essay. In it, he emphasized that few journalists would have realized what a great, poetic talent we 've lost in Slovenia. First of all, because he was the greatest talent since Prešeren. This exhortation was, above all, to understand in the context that both the modern European as well as the newer Slovene literature in the relevant national- liberal, monthly literary magazine Ljubjanski zvon ( Ljubljana bell) either as the first at all or in the second case was only represented more conventional texts.

Dragotin chain had an important influence on future generations of writers of his home country such as Alojz Gradnik, Srečko Kosovel, Miran Jarc, Ivan Minatti Janez Menart, Cajetan Kovič and Ciril Zlobec.

However, the reception of all Slovenian poet was complicated by the fact that in the first anthologies of the 1930s the quality of translations was rather limited: This is the assessment Glonar, librarian in the National Study Library in Ljubljana, in 1933, it was " not the language of contemporary German poetry, but the language of textbook poetry and Allerweltsschlagern ".

Works (selection)

• Šwalča a nožicy. Mladinska Knjiga, Ljubljana 1967.
• Pesmi. Cankarjeva Založba, 2nd ed Ljubljana 1984.

• The Zauberscherchen. Translated by Anton Svetina. Illustrations: Jelka Reichman, M. Pawlak, 1985 ISBN 3-881-99198-0.

Adaptations

• Najlepše Slovenske pravljice. Nika 2010. ( Tales of Dragotin chain, Fran Levstik and Ela Peroci )