page_title: Slovene literature
section_title: Early literature
hierarchical_section_title: Slovene literature / Early literature
caption_attribution_description: Impressionist painting. A man walks in a field and throws seed. In the background, a hayrack and Kamnitnik Hill at Škofja Loka (northwestern Slovenia) are visible.
context_page_description: Slovene literature is the literature written in the Slovene language. It spans across all literary genres with historically the Slovene historical fiction as the most widespread Slovene fiction genre. The Romantic 19th-century epic poetry written by the leading name of the Slovene literary canon, France Prešeren, 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. Poetry, narrative prose, drama, essay, and criticism 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 and authority.
context_section_description: 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 and also prose, which included tales of myths, fairy tales, and narrations.
caption: The Sower (1907) by the Impressionist painter Ivan Grohar is a metaphor for the Slovenes as a vigorous nation in front of an uncertain future[2] and a nation that sows in order that it could harvest.[3]
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