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Shadwell, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Shadwell, Thomas, 1642?–1692, English dramatist and poet. His plays, written in the tradition of Jonson's comedy of humours, are distinguished for their realistic pictures of London life and for the...

Scriblerus Club

(Encyclopedia)Scriblerus Club, English literary group formed about 1713 to satirize “all the false tastes in learning.” Among its chief members were Arbuthnot, Gay, Thomas Parnell, Pope, and Swift. Meetings of ...

Gage, Thomas, English general in North America

(Encyclopedia)Gage, Thomas, 1721–87, English general in North America. He came to America (1754) with Gen. Edward Braddock and took part in the ill-fated expedition against Fort Duquesne (1755). Later in the last...

Santillana, Iñigo López de Mendoza, marqués de

(Encyclopedia)Santillana, Iñigo López de Mendoza, marqués de ēnyēˈgō lōˈpĕth dā māndōˈthä märkāsˈ dā säntēlyäˈnä [key], 1398–1458, Spanish poet and literary patron. Influenced by Dante, Pe...

Strachey, William

(Encyclopedia)Strachey, William, 1572–1621, English colonial historian; educated at Cambridge. In 1609 he sailed to Virginia with Sir Thomas Gates. A storm wrecked his ship in the Bermudas, and the party remained...

Coleridge, Hartley

(Encyclopedia)Coleridge, Hartley kōlˈrĭj, kōˈlə– [key], 1796–1849, English author; eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Reared in the household of the poet Southey after the estrangement of his parents,...

Falkland, Lucius Cary, 2d Viscount

(Encyclopedia)Falkland, Lucius Cary, 2d Viscount fôkˈlənd [key], 1610?–1643, English statesman and literary figure. He entered Parliament in 1640, where he opposed the exaction of ship money and spoke in favor...

Caine, Hall

(Encyclopedia)Caine, Hall (Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine), 1853–1931, English novelist. Secretary to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, he lived with him from 1881 until the poet's death and wrote Recollections of Rossetti (1...

Van Doren, Carl (Clinton)

(Encyclopedia)Van Doren, Carl (Clinton), 1885–1950, American editor and author, b. Hope, Vermilion co., Ill., grad. Univ. of Illinois, 1907, Ph.D. Columbia, 1911; brother of Mark Van Doren. He lectured at Columbi...

Blanchot, Maurice

(Encyclopedia)Blanchot, Maurice mōrēsˈ bläNshōˈ [key], 1907–2003, French novelist and literary critic. One of the first intellectuals in France to be interested in questions of language and meaning, he was ...