Without doubt Francè Preseren is the most important and most beloved poet of Slovenia. Each year the anniversary of his death is marked by literary readings, award ceremonies, and other festivities throughout the entire country. Every schoolchild learns his poetry, and as one of its first acts of statehood the newly independent Slovene republic proclaimed his poem "Zdravljica" (The Toast) the national anthem. Preseren's life was neither long nor easy, but he and his hauntingly beautiful, but pain-fraught, poetry have in many ways come to symbolize and epitomize the Slovene national condition.

On 3 December 1800 Preseren was born the third of eight children of well-to-do peasants, Simen and Mina, in the small village of Vrba, north of Ljubljana. He had a serene childhood and was somewhat spoiled by his parents, who perceived early on that he was the most talented of their children. He was sent from home...