Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Thomas, Ambroise

(Encyclopedia)Thomas, Ambroise äNbrwäzˈ tōmäˈ [key], 1811–96, French operatic composer, studied at the Paris Conservatory, receiving the Prix de Rome in 1832. He later taught composition there and became it...

Radiguet, Raymond

(Encyclopedia)Radiguet, Raymond rāmôNˈ rädēgāˈ [key], 1903–23, French writer. In his brief career he wrote two penetrating novels—The Devil in the Flesh (1923, tr. 1932), a study of adolescence; and Le B...

Rove Tunnel

(Encyclopedia)Rove Tunnel rōv, Fr. rôv [key], southern section of the Marseilles-Rhône Canal, 4.5 mi (7.2 km) long and 72 ft (22 m) wide, Bouches-du-Rhône dept., SE France; opened 1927. Starting near the villag...

Scarron, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Scarron, Paul pōl skärôNˈ [key], 1610–60, French writer. His picaresque novel Le Romant comique (1651) vividly portrays the lives of a company of strolling players. He also wrote short stories, ...

Corneille, Pierre

(Encyclopedia)Corneille, Pierre pyĕr kôrnāˈyə [key], 1606–84, French dramatist, ranking with Racine as a master of French classical tragedy. Educated by Jesuits, he practiced law briefly in his native Rouen ...

Balzac, Honoré de

(Encyclopedia)Balzac, Honoré de bălˈzăk, bôl–, Fr. ōnôrāˈ də bälzäkˈ [key], 1799–1850, French novelist, b. Tours. Balzac ranks among the great masters of the novel. Of a bourgeois family, he himsel...

ambergris

(Encyclopedia)ambergris ămˈbərgrēs [key], waxlike substance originating as a morbid concretion in the intestine of the sperm whale. Lighter than water, it is found floating on tropical seas or cast up on the sh...

Ohlin, Bertil

(Encyclopedia)Ohlin, Bertil bĕrˈtĭl ōˈlĭn [key], 1899–1979, Swedish economist, b. Klippan. A professor at several Swedish universities, he wrote the influential Interregional and International Trade (1933, ...

Traynor, Roger John

(Encyclopedia)Traynor, Roger John, 1900–1983, American jurist, b. Park City, Utah, grad. Univ. of California at Berkeley (A.B., 1923, Ph.D., 1926, J.D., 1927.) After teaching political science and law at the Univ...

Browse by Subject