Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Dryden, John

(Encyclopedia)Dryden, John, 1631–1700, English poet, dramatist, and critic, b. Northamptonshire, grad. Cambridge, 1654. He went to London about 1657 and first came to public notice with his Heroic Stanzas (1659),...

Arrabal, Fernando

(Encyclopedia)Arrabal, Fernando fārnänˈdō äräbälˈ [key], 1932–, French playwright, b. Melilla, Morocco. He studied law in Madrid before moving to Paris in 1954. His plays, which reflect his abhorrence of ...

Jochumsson, Matthías

(Encyclopedia)Jochumsson, Matthías mätˈtēäs yŏkˈküms-sŏn [key], 1835–1920, Icelandic playwright, poet, and translator. Although Jochumsson was the founder of the modern drama in Iceland, with poetic play...

Hawking, Stephen William

(Encyclopedia)Hawking, Stephen William, 1942–2018, British theoretical physicist, b. Oxford, England, grad. University College, Oxford, 1962, Ph.D. Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1966. In 1962 Hawking was diagnosed as ...

Garrison, William Lloyd

(Encyclopedia)Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805–79, American abolitionist, b. Newburyport, Mass. He supplemented his limited schooling with newspaper work and in 1829 went to Baltimore to aid Benjamin Lundy in publis...

Eliot, Charles William

(Encyclopedia)Eliot, Charles William, 1834–1926, American educator and president of Harvard, b. Boston, grad. Harvard, 1853. In 1854 he was appointed tutor in mathematics at Harvard and in 1858 became assistant p...

Lodge, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Lodge, Thomas, 1558?–1625, English writer, grad. Oxford, 1577. After abandoning the study of law for literature, he published (c.1580) his defense of poetry and other arts, usually called Honest Exc...

Clarke, Charles Cowden

(Encyclopedia)Clarke, Charles Cowden, 1787–1877, English lecturer and author. He was a close friend of Keats, who was a pupil of Clarke's father. Clarke's lectures on Shakespeare were published as Shakespeare Cha...

Eggleston, William

(Encyclopedia)Eggleston, William (William Joseph Eggleston, Jr.), 1939–, American photographer credited with establishing color photography as an art form, b. Memphis Tenn. His early work in black and white was i...

Eaton, William

(Encyclopedia)Eaton, William, 1764–1811, U.S. army officer, celebrated for his exploit in the Tripolitan War, b. Woodstock, Conn. Captain Eaton was sent to Tunis as consul in 1798 and learned much about the Barba...

Browse by Subject