Michael Denis

Johann Nepomuk Cosmas Michael Denis, also Sined the Bard ( born September 27, 1729 Schärding, Bavaria, Upper Austria today, † September 29, 1800 in Vienna ) was an Austrian writer, translator, librarian and zoologist.

Life

Michael Denis has been taught by his father, Johann Rudolph Denis, early in the Latin language. 1739 was the then ten -year-old into the Jesuit high school in Passau, which he successfully completed in 1747. That same year, Denis joined in Vienna by the Jesuit order.

After the novitiate Denis worked as grammar and rhetoric teacher at the Jesuit colleges, Graz and Klagenfurt. In this capacity, he wrote his neo-Latin school dramas and the didactic epic palatium Rhetoricae ( "Palace of rhetoric "). 1759, he was appointed professor at the Vienna Theresianumgasse and was from 1784 Curator of the Imperial Library in Vienna.

In addition to the school dramas already mentioned Denis ' work as a writer also includes neo-Latin and German poetry and German hymns. The lyrical works he published mostly under the pseudonym Sined the Bard (where Sined is an anagram of his surname ). He has also written library science works and textbooks, and in 1762 the first Austrian reading book.

He was known throughout the German-speaking area by the first German translation of the works of " Ossian " ( 1768/69 ), which were recorded as a Gaelic bard alleged works enthusiastically throughout Europe, however, were a contemporary invention of the Scotsman James Macpherson.

Denis helped several years the Austrian naturalist Johann Ignaz Schiffermueller to collect the butterflies of the Viennese milieu and edit. As a result, appeared in 1775, the Systematic List of butterflies of the Vienna area. The butterfly collection at the Imperial Court Naturalienkabinett burned in 1848.

1801-1802 of the literary estate of the late 1800 Denis was published in two volumes by Joseph Friedrich von Retzer ( 1754-1824 ).

In 1874 ( 20th District ) was named the Denisgasse after him in Vienna Brigittenau.

Works

  • Poetic images of most military operations in Europe since 1756, Vienna 1760
  • The poems of Ossian, an ancient Celtic poet, translated from English, Vienna 1768-69
  • Introduction to the book science, Vienna 1777-1778
  • The songs of the bard Sineds, Vienna 1772
  • Systematic directory of the Butterflies of the Vienna area issued by some teachers at the Imperial Theresianumgasse ( with Schiffermueller ), Vienna 1775
  • Plan the bibliography, Vienna 1777
  • The oddities of the Imperial Public Library at garellischen Theresiano, Vienna 1780
  • Bibliotheca typographica Vindobonensis from anno 1482 usque ad annum 1560, Vienna 1782 (also German Vienna printer history to 1560, Vienna 1782-1793 )
  • Ossian and Sineds songs, 5 volumes, 1784
  • Short story of the disputes over the old documents, Heidelberg 1785
  • Back memories, Vienna 1794
  • Carmina quaedam, Vienna, 1794 ( digitized at CAMENA )
  • Collected pursuits with God as early as the 12th century, Vienna 1799
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