This book deals with the works of Ivan Cankar, the greatest Slovenian writer, focusing on his relation to existential, social, and moral reality as reflected in individuals and in society at large. The method of literary analysis shows a surprising harmony between personal confessions and a rich symbolism that reveals the writer s unconditional belief in the power of conscience, strong conviction of the sense of victims and the longing for the triumph of love and justice. A holistic interpretation yields the conclusion that most of Cankar s works are confessions that purport to be true to...

The book shows Ivan Cankar (1876 1918) as the first Slovenian writer to examine the human conscience, justice, guilt and punishment in a way comparable to Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and influenced also by the Bible. Given Cankar s own bitter childhood experience of poverty and his awareness of the ceaseless injustice which rules the world, he has compassion for the wrongdoings carried out by people from lower social realms, especially children, and is all the more critical towards higher classes who cause their suffering. In his last book, Dream Visions, he reveals his...