The tradition of literary research in Slovenia is quite long. It first reached a form that would today be associated with comparative literature in the beginning of 19th century with Matija Cop (1797-1835). Cop was the first to deal with literature in a view broader than national literary history in an efficient and systematic way. Being a contemporary of Schlegel brothers, Sismond, Bouterweck and Villemain, he took an interest in the development of European literatures and became the source of information for contemporary Slovene authors and thus he contributed to the formation of Slovene romantic classicism and the central period of the main Slovene romantic poet, France Preseren.
Cop claimed that understanding of European background was a basic requirement for any study of Slovene literature since it was submitted to so many different and strong influences. He had broad interests expanding from literary, æsthetic and formal questions to such problems as evaluation of literary works, relations of literature with society and relationship between national and European development of literature.
Although after his death and the decline of Slovene romanticism, the work of Cop was not continued, he is still regarded as a predecessor of modern comparative literature in Slovenia as well as modern Slovene history of literature since his ideas and his role of mediator were characteristic for the development of literary research in the 20th century. But Slovene scholars returned to his ideas only after 1900 when Matija Murko, Ivan Prijatelj, Ivan Grafenauer and France Kidric introduced the problem of European background in their research of Slovene romanticism. Their approach included a number of typical comparative problems which they treated mostly with a positivistic, but also geistgeschichtlich approach. However, they considered these problems only in the frame of Slovene literature. Later they paid special attention to relations between Slovene and other slavonic literatures and it seemed that a special discipline that could be called "Slavonic Comparative Literature" was being developed. But since the idea was incompatible with the layout of research introduced by Cop and the importance of other European influences could not be denied, a broader view and new approaches to literary research was introduced by Anton Ocvirk in the 30's.
Anton Ocvirk (1907-1980) laid the foundation of modern Slovene comparative literature. He studied in Ljubljana, Vienna and Paris where he had contacts with the French school of comparative literature (especially Hazard and Baldensperger). But as it can be clearly seen in his first major work, Theory of Comparative Literary History (Teorija primerjalne literarne zgodovine, 1936), Ocvirk followed at first Van Tieghem's theoretical approach to comparative literature which limited the discipline to the study of mediators and influences. But later Ocvirk abandoned these views and proposed a much broader view of comparative literature although he insisted on a positivistic and empiristic approach and methods. It is interesting to observe that he particularly stressed æsthetic, stylistic and biographical research which he used in conjunction with traditional methods of the French school in research of literary movements and trends in Europe and Slovenia. On the other hand, he opposed any purely theoretical research and stressed the study of actual literary works.
After Ocvirk founded the Department of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory in 1939, Slovene literary scholars followed his ideas for more than two decades. But in 1962 Dusan Pirjevec (1921-1977) who succeeded Ocvirk as Head of Department adopted new views: he rejected historically-empirical approach and the theories of structuralism to introduce a philosophical approach to literary history and theory, replacing historical analysis with phenomenological and existential interpretation. He adopted Ingarden's phenomenological theory of literary art and, following Heidegger's philosophical views, he proposed that through an "ontological difference" literary works of art open a way towards metaphysical thinking and metaphysical truth. His major work was the elaboration of a theory of novel based on theories of Lukács, philosophical heremeneutics of H.G. Gadamer, E.Grassi and others.
In the 80's, Slovene comparative literature, led by Janko Kos (1931-), started to reintroduce rational and empirical studies, combining them with geistgeschichtlich approach and philosophical methods. With a synthesis of scientific and philosophical methods of literary research which led to a multidisciplinary approach to literary studies, a great interest in the methodology of literary discipline appeared in the late 80's and 90's. This situation enables Slovene comparative literature to follow international trends closely while retaining its particular course of development.