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Blake, William

(Encyclopedia)Blake, William, 1757–1827, English poet and artist, b. London. Although he exerted a great influence on English romanticism, Blake defies characterization by school, movement, or even period. At the...

Lowell, James Russell

(Encyclopedia)Lowell, James Russell, 1819–91, American poet, critic, and editor, b. Cambridge, Mass. He was influential in revitalizing the intellectual life of New England in the mid-19th cent. Educated at Harva...

Grünewald, Mathias

(Encyclopedia)Grünewald, Mathias mätēˈäs grünˈəvält [key], c.1475–1528, German painter of religious subjects. His original name was Mathis Gothart Neithart. Although he assimilated various compositional ...

Isaiah

(Encyclopedia)Isaiah īzāˈyə, īsāˈ– [key], prophetic book of the Bible. It is a collection of prophecies from a 300-year period attributed to Isaiah, who may have been a priest. Some scholars argue that a l...

pentameter

(Encyclopedia)pentameter pĕntămˈətər [key] [Gr.,=measure of five], in prosody, a line to be scanned in five feet (see versification). The third line of Thomas Nashe's “Spring” is in pentameter: “Cold dot...

Baker, Ella Josephine

(Encyclopedia)Baker, Ella Josephine, 1903–1986, U.S. civil rights activist, b. Norfolk, Va. Ella Baker was an activist and organizer whose b...

Catherine of Siena, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Catherine of Siena, Saint sēĕnˈə [key], 1347–80, Italian mystic and diplomat, a member of the third order of the Dominicans, Doctor of the Church. The daughter of Giacomo Benincasa, a Sienese dy...

Zaragoza

(Encyclopedia)Zaragoza sârˌəgōˈsə [key], city (1990 pop. 592,686), capital of Zaragoza prov. and leading city of Aragón, NE Spain, on the Ebro River. An important commercial and communications center, it is ...

blindness

(Encyclopedia)blindness, partial or complete loss of sight. Blindness may be caused by injury, by lesions of the brain or optic nerve, by disease of the cornea or retina, by pathological changes originating in syst...

color

(Encyclopedia)color, effect produced on the eye and its associated nerves by light waves of different wavelength or frequency. Light transmitted from an object to the eye stimulates the different color cones of the...