Jacob Masen (28 March 1606 - 27 September 1681) was a German Jesuit

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

, historian,

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

and

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

. He is known as a prolific writer in Latin.James J. Mertz, John P. Murphy, ''Jesuit Latin Poets of the 17th and 18th Centuries: an anthology of neo-Latin poetry'' (1989), p.153.

Life

He was born at Dahlen in Jülich, and studied in Cologne. Having entered the Order of Jesus in 1629, he taught poetry and rhetoric in the Lower Rhine region. After theological studies he was ordained

between 1639 and 1641. On the 3 May 1648 he took his

final vows Religious vows are the public vows made by the members of religious communities pertaining to their conduct, practices, and views. In the Buddhism tradition, in particular within the Mahayana and Vajrayana tradition, many different kinds of re ...

in Cologne. where he also acted as a

preacher A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as ...

. He also acted in

Paderborn Paderborn (; Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and ''Born'', an old German term for t ...

and

Trier Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the ...

. He died, aged 75, in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

Works

He completed a substantial antiquarian work on Trier by Christoph Brouwer. His epic poem ''Sarcotis'' (1654) became notorious in the 18th century, after William Lauder alleged that John Milton had plagiarised it in writing '' Paradise Lost''. With

Jacob Bidermann Jacob Bidermann (1578 – 20 August 1639) was born in the Austrian (at that time) village of Ehingen, about 30 miles southwest of Ulm. He was a Jesuit priest and professor of theology, but is remembered mostly for his plays. He had a talent f ...

, he was one of the most important Jesuit dramatists influencing German drama.Leonard Foster, ''Neo-Latin Tradition and Vernacular Poetry'', p. 100, in Gerhart Hoffmeister (editor), ''German Baroque Literature: The European Perspective'' (1983).

Notes

External links

* http://www.kirchenlexikon.de/m/masen_j.shtml {{DEFAULTSORT:Masen, Jacob 1606 births 1681 deaths 17th-century German Jesuits German poets German male poets German male dramatists and playwrights 17th-century German dramatists and playwrights 17th-century German male writers

Life

Works

Notes

Further reading

External links