Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Barbauld, Anna Letitia (Aikin)

(Encyclopedia)Barbauld, Anna Letitia (Aikin) bärˈbôld [key], 1743–1825, English poet and editor. In 1774 she married Rochemont Barbauld and with him opened a boarding school. Her Hymns in Prose for children, w...

Murner, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Murner, Thomas tōˈmäs mo͝orˈnər [key], 1475–1537, German satirist and Franciscan monk, b. Strasbourg. He was the most scurrilous writer of his time and spared almost no one in his satire. He a...

Aretino, Pietro

(Encyclopedia)Aretino, Pietro pyĕˈtrō ärātēˈnō [key], 1492–1556, Italian satirist. He led a life of adventure and wrote abusive works for hire. His derisive wit was so feared that the gifts of those who s...

Beowulf

(Encyclopedia)Beowulf bāˈəwo͝olf [key], oldest English epic, probably composed in the early 8th cent. by an Anglian bard in the vicinity of Northumbria. It survives in only one manuscript, written c.a.d. 1000 b...

Abercrombie, Lascelles

(Encyclopedia)Abercrombie, Lascelles lăsˈəlz [key], 1881–1938, English poet and critic. Complex and cerebral in style, his poetry often expresses his distaste for 20th-century industrialism. His volumes of poe...

Jones, Ernest Charles

(Encyclopedia)Jones, Ernest Charles, 1819–69, English radical, lawyer, journalist, and poet. He was a prominent leader of the more militant wing of the Chartists (see Chartism). After imprisonment for sedition (1...

Montagu, Elizabeth (Robinson)

(Encyclopedia)Montagu, Elizabeth (Robinson), 1720–1800, English author, one of the bluestockings. She was noted for her wit and beauty, and her London literary salon was frequented by Johnson, Walpole, Burke, and...

Myers, Frederic William Henry

(Encyclopedia)Myers, Frederic William Henry mīˈərz [key], 1843–1901, English essayist and poet. His works include the poem St. Paul (1867) and Essays, Classical and Modern (1883). He is well known for his inve...

Treece, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Treece, Henry, 1912–66, English poet and novelist. He served as an intelligence officer in the Royal Air Force during World War II, after which he taught school for many years. He is noted chiefly f...

Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen

(Encyclopedia)Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen skōˈĭn [key], 1840–1922, English poet and political writer. After retiring c.1872 from the diplomatic service, he began a career of travel and political crusading. He wrote ...