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Williams, Tennessee

(Encyclopedia)Williams, Tennessee (Thomas Lanier Williams), 1911–83, American dramatist, b. Columbus, Miss., grad. State Univ. of Iowa, 1938. One of America's foremost 20th-century playwrights and the author of m...

decadents

(Encyclopedia)decadents, in literature, name loosely applied to those 19th-century, fin-de-siècle European authors who sought inspiration, both in their lives and in their writings, in aestheticism and in all the ...

Commager, Henry Steele

(Encyclopedia)Commager, Henry Steele kŏmˈĭjər [key], 1902–98, American historian, b. Pittsburgh, Pa. He received his Ph.D. from the Univ. of Chicago in 1928 and taught history at New York Univ. (1926–38), C...

Eugénie

(Encyclopedia)Eugénie yo͞ojēˈnē, Fr. özhānēˈ [key], 1826–1920, empress of the French (1853–70), consort of Napoleon III. Born in Spain, she was christened Eugenia María de Montijo de Guzmán and was t...

Husserl, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Husserl, Edmund ĕtˈmo͝ont ho͝osˈərl [key], 1859–1938, German philosopher, founder of the phenomenological movement (see phenomenology). He was professor at Göttingen and Freiburg and was grea...

Haggai

(Encyclopedia)Haggai hăgˈāī [key], prophetic book of the Bible. Dated 520 b.c., it is a collection of five oracles addressed to Jews, newly returned from the Babylonian exile. The prophet summons the people to ...

glasnost

(Encyclopedia)glasnost gläsˈnōst [key], Soviet cultural and social policy of the late 1980s. Following his ascension to the leadership of the USSR in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev began to promote a policy of openness...

National Gallery

(Encyclopedia)National Gallery, London, one of the permanent national art collections of Great Britain, est. 1824. The nucleus of museum was the 38-picture collection of the late English banker John Julius Angerste...

Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da

(Encyclopedia)Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da jōvänˈnē pyārlo͞oēˈjē päˌlāstrēˈnä [key], c.1525–1594, Italian composer whose family name was Pierluigi; b. Palestrina, from which he took his name. ...

O'Toole, Peter

(Encyclopedia)O'Toole, Peter (Peter Seamus O'Toole), 1932–2013, British actor, b. Connemara, Ireland, grad. Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London (1955). A classical stage actor, he appeared (1955–58) with the ...