Janez Menart () (29 September 1929 – 22 January 2004) was a Slovene poet, best known for his Intimist poetry. He translated a number of classic French and

English poetry This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including the Republic of Ireland after December 1922. The earl ...

and

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

works into Slovene, including

Shakespeare's sonnets William Shakespeare (1565 –1616) wrote sonnets on a variety of themes. When discussing or referring to Shakespeare's sonnets, it is almost always a reference to the 154 sonnets that were first published all together in a quarto in 1609. Howe ...

Biography

Menart was born in

Maribor Maribor ( , , ; also known by other #Name, historical names) is the List of cities and towns in Slovenia, second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is the seat of the ...

. His mother was a theatre actress. She soon fell ill, so the family moved back to

Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...

. His father worked as an

emergency medical technician An emergency medical technician (often, more simply, EMT) is a medical professional that provides emergency medical services. EMTs are most commonly found serving on ambulances and in fire departments in the US and Canada, as full-time and som ...

and committed suicide when Janez was seven years old. His mother died eight years later. Due to poor social circumstances Janez and his older sister lived almost from the beginning of schooling in the

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

s. Janez was able to enter grammar school only because he won one of the four

scholarship A scholarship is a form of Student financial aid, financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, Multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion, athleti ...

s offered by

Drava Banovina The Drava Banovina or Drava Banate (Slovene language, Slovene and Serbo-Croatian: ''Dravska banovina''), was a province (Ban (title), banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. This province consisted of most of present-day Slove ...

in 1940. Having finished it he attended the Faculty of Philosophy at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and re ...

where he graduated in Slovene philology and in

comparative literature Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...

studies. After compulsory military service he was at first a

publisher's reader A publisher's reader or first reader is a person paid by a publisher or book sales club to read manuscripts A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as op ...

, then a

stage director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

and finally a director of puppet section at Triglav film. In that time he also married and got a daughter. Since 1963, when he left film, he earned his money by writing and translation. Then he employed himself as the editor of drama editorial board at

RTV Ljubljana Radiotelevizija Slovenija () – usually abbreviated to RTV Slovenija, RTV SLO (or simply RTV within Slovenia) – is Slovenia's national public broadcasting organization. Based in Ljubljana, it has regional broadcasting centres in Koper and Ma ...

. Due to political circumstances he was later degraded to a stage director and in the final three years he worked as a translator for current needs. In 1979 he decided to leave his job and employ himself as a programme leader of the

book sales club A book sales club is a subscription-based method of selling and purchasing books. It is more often called simply a book club, a term that is also used to describe a book discussion club, which can cause confusion. Business model Each member of a ...

''Svet knjige'' at Mladinska knjiga. He stayed there till his retirement in 1990. He died in Ljubljana due to a hospital infection.

Work

Janez Menart was one of the most popular Slovene poets in the second half of the 20th century. Over four hundred of his individuals poems have been translated to about 25 foreign languages and over half of these translations were published in independent editions. Over one hundred of his poems and

chanson A (, ; , ) is generally any Lyrics, lyric-driven French song. The term is most commonly used in English to refer either to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval music, medieval and Renaissance music or to a specific style of ...

lyrics have been set to music, some of them have also been recorded on cassettes and discs. Menart began seriously writing songs when he was 15 and had first of them published in the last two years of attending grammar school. He gradually published them in a continuously larger number of literary journals and by radio. His career of a prominent literate began in 1953 when he published the collection '' Poems of the Four'' () in collaboration with

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 ...

Tone Pavček Tone Pavček (; 29 September 1928 – 21 October 2011) was one of the most influential Slovene people, Slovene poets, translators, and essayists from the first post-World War II, war generation. He published numerous collections of poetry, we ...

and

Ciril Zlobec Ciril Zlobec (4 July 1925 – 24 August 2018) was a Slovene poet, writer, translator, journalist and former politician. He is best remembered for his poems, publishing several volumes of poetry in his lifetime. In 1990 he became a member of th ...

. His poetry is traditionally confessional, the narration realistic and satirical while the form rests on traditional meter with romantic images and everyday reality. Also well known are his

epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word derives from the Greek (, "inscription", from [], "to write on, to inscribe"). This literary device has been practiced for over two millennia ...

s. Menart complemented original poetry by translating foreign language literature. Slovenes have to thank him for, among others, the excellent translations of

Shakespeare's Sonnets William Shakespeare (1565 –1616) wrote sonnets on a variety of themes. When discussing or referring to Shakespeare's sonnets, it is almost always a reference to the 154 sonnets that were first published all together in a quarto in 1609. Howe ...

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...

's,

Burns Burns may refer to: Astronomy * 2708 Burns, an asteroid * Burns (crater), on Mercury People * Burns (surname), list of people and characters named Burns ** Burns (musician), Scottish record producer Places in the United States * Burns, ...

's and Prévert's poetry and Villon's Collected Works. He also translated

English Renaissance The English Renaissance was a Cultural movement, cultural and Art movement, artistic movement in England during the late 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginni ...

plays such as

Volpone ''Volpone'' (, Italian for "sly fox") is a comedy play by English playwright Ben Jonson first produced in 1605–1606, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable. A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-perfo ...

by Jonson and Doctor Faustus by

Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe ( ; Baptism, baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the English Renaissance theatre, Eli ...

. Although mainly known as a poet and translator, Menart also wrote scripts for

puppet A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or Legendary creature, mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. Puppetry is an ancient form of theatre which dates back to the 5th century BC in anci ...

and

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

s and

television play A television play is a television programming genre which is a drama performance broadcast from a multi-camera television studio, usually live in the early days of television but later recorded to tape. This is in contrast to a television movi ...

s. He was also the first in Slovenia to publish a CD

audiobook An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sch ...

, with his poems largely interpreted by him himself.

In music

In 1975, his poem "Homeland" (), translated by the Croatian poet Zvonimir Golob, was used as lyrics for the song "Domovina" sung by the Croatian rock and folk musician Drago Mlinarec.

References

* * Berta Golob, ''Srce ustvarja roka piše'', Založba Mladinska knjiga, Ljubljana 1983 * Muris Idrizović, ''Otroška in mladinska književnost v Jugoslaviji'', Založba Obzorja, Ljubljana 1984 * Polona Hanžek Novak, ''V srcu mladi'', Založba Genija, Ljubljana 2004 {{DEFAULTSORT:Menart, Janez 1929 births 2004 deaths University of Ljubljana alumni Slovenian male poets Slovenian translators English–Slovene translators French–Slovene translators Slovenian screenwriters Slovenian male screenwriters Prešeren Award laureates Members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Epigrammatists Presidents of the Slovene Writers' Association Writers from Ljubljana Writers from Maribor 20th-century Slovenian poets 20th-century Slovenian translators Burials at Žale 20th-century screenwriters