Klaj - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

KLAJ (latinized CLAJus), Johann (1616-1656), German poet, was born at Meissen in Saxony. After studying theology at Wittenberg he went to Nuremberg as a "candidate for holy orders," and there, in conjunction with Georg Philipp Harsdorffer, founded in 1644 the literary society known as the Pegnitz order. In 1647 he received an appointment as master in the Sebaldus school in Nuremberg, and in 1650 became preacher at Kitzingen, where he died in 1656. Klaj's poems consist of dramas, written in stilted language and redundant with adventures, among which are Millenand Himmelfahrt Christi (Nuremberg, 1644), and Herodes, der Kindermorder (Nuremberg, 1645), and a poem, written jointly with Harsdorffer, Pegnesische Schafergedicht (1644), which gives in allegorical form the story of his settlement in Nuremberg.

See Tittmann, Die Niirnberger Dichterschule (Gottingen, 1847).