Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Heyse, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Heyse, Paul poul hīˈzə [key], 1830–1914, German realistic writer. Besides the 120 novellas on which his reputation rests, he wrote some 50 plays, 6 novels, and many fine translations, especially ...

Chase, Mary Ellen

(Encyclopedia)Chase, Mary Ellen, 1887–1973, American educator and writer, b. Blue Hill, Maine, grad. Univ. of Maine, 1909. Her works, set in Maine and excellent in their regional fidelity, include a biography and...

Chryseis

(Encyclopedia)Chryseis krīsēˈĭs [key], in the Iliad, a woman captured by Agamemnon. When ransom efforts failed, her father, the priest Chryses, appealed to Apollo, who promptly sent a plague to terrorize the Gr...

Ross, Betsy

(Encyclopedia)Ross, Betsy, 1752–1836, American seamstress, b. Philadelphia. Her full name was Elizabeth Griscom Ross Ashburn Claypoole. She is known to have made flags during the American Revolution, although the...

Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan

(Encyclopedia)Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan, 1896–1953, American author, b. Washington, D.C., grad. Univ. of Wisconsin, 1918. She was a journalist until 1928, when she moved to the Florida backwoods, where most of he...

oriel

(Encyclopedia)oriel ôrˈēəl [key], projecting or bay window in an upper story, supported on brackets, corbels, or an engaged column, usually polygonal or curved in plan. It is most characteristic of the late med...

Stuttgart Ballet

(Encyclopedia)Stuttgart Ballet, the first major German ballet company. The company, housed in the Württemberg Staatstheater, rose rapidly to fame in the 1960s under the direction of John Cranko (1927–73), who le...

Bataille, Georges

(Encyclopedia)Bataille, Georges jôrj bətī, –bätī [key], 1897–1962, French writer. Bataille was the founding editor of the journal Critique (1946). Strongly influenced by Nietzsche, he focuses on extreme st...

Richardson, Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Richardson, Samuel, 1689–1761, English novelist, b. Derbyshire. When he was 50 and a prosperous printer, Richardson was asked to compose a guide to letter writing. The idea of introducing a central ...

intermezzo

(Encyclopedia)intermezzo ĭntərmĕtˈsō, –mĕdˈzō [key]. 1 Any theatrical entertainment of a light nature performed between the divisions of a longer, more serious work. 2 In the 17th and 18th cent., a short ...