DENIS, MICHAEL. - Austrian Jesuit, learned bibliographer and German poet, b. 27 Sept. 1729 at Schärding am Inn, d. in Vienna on 29 Sept. 1800. A pupil at the Jesuit grammar school in Passau, and a member of the Order from 1747, after teaching at Graz and Klagenfurt he assumed 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 appointed first custodian of the Imperial Library. D. was an effective educator of youth and exercised a broad and profound influence on German-Austrian culture.
He published important bibliographical works, as well as ancient manuscripts (including 25 unpublished sermons of s. Agostino from a twelfth-century codex); he elucidated the history of literature and distinguished himself through his poetic and linguistic activity. He introduced Klopstock and Ossian, Haller and Uz; he placed in the hands of youth material drawn from the best modern works in German verse, gave the language gentler and more elegant forms, and enlightened the good taste of his age. D. composed poems and numerous sacred hymns for choirs, some of which have become historic (the Hier liegt vor deiner Majestät, set to music by Haydn; the diocesan songbook Geistliche Lieder zum Gebrauch der hohen Metropolitankirche in Wien, containing the well-known Advent hymn, Tauet, Himmel, den Gerechten).