DENIS, MICHAEL. - Austrian Jesuit, learned bibliographer and German poet, b. 27 Sept. 1729 at Schärding am Inn, d. at Vienna 29 Sept. 1800. A pupil at the Jesuit gymnasium in Passau, and a member of the Order from 1747, after teaching at Graz and Klagenfurt he took up in 1759 the supervision of studies and the chair of literature at the Theresianum, the military academy of Vienna. From then on D. remained in the Austrian capital. After the suppression of the Society of Jesus (1773) he administered the Garelli library, and in 1791 was named first conservator of the Imperial Library. D. was an effective educator of youth and exercised a wide and deep influence on German-Austrian culture.
He published important bibliographical works, besides ancient manuscripts (among them 25 unpublished sermons of St. Augustine from a 12th-century codex); he illustrated the history of literature; he distinguished himself in poetic and linguistic activity. He made known Klopstock and Ossian, Haller and Uz; he placed in the hands of youth selections from the best modern German verse; he gave to the language sweeter and more elegant forms, and illuminated the good taste of his age. D. was a composer of poems and of numerous sacred hymns for choirs, some of which have passed into history (the "Hier liegt vor deiner Majestät" set to music by Haydn, the diocesan hymnal Geistliche Lieder zum Gebrauch der hohen Metropolitankirche in Wien with the well-known Advent hymn, "Tauet, Himmel, den Gerechten").