Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

33 results found

Verga, Giovanni

(Encyclopedia)Verga, Giovanni jōvänˈnē vĕrˈgä [key], 1840–1922, Italian novelist, b. Sicily. He abandoned the study of law for literature and wrote several novels of passion in the style of the French real...

Duse, Eleonora

(Encyclopedia)Duse, Eleonora do͞oˈzə, Ital. ālāōnôˈrä do͞oˈzā [key], 1859–1924, Italian actress. From a theatrical family, she made a successful appearance at 14 as Juliet and in 1879 gained recogniti...

Moore, George

(Encyclopedia)Moore, George, 1852–1933, English author, b. Ireland. As a young man he lived in Paris, studying at various art schools. Inspired by Zola, Flaubert, Turgenev, and the 19th-century French realists, M...

Howells, William Dean

(Encyclopedia)Howells, William Dean, 1837–1920, American novelist, critic, and editor, b. Martins Ferry, Ohio. Both in his own novels and in his critical writing, Howells was a champion of realism in American lit...

Maupassant, Guy de

(Encyclopedia)Maupassant, Guy de gē də mōpäsäNˈ [key], 1850–93, French novelist and short-story writer, of an ancient Norman family. He worked in a government office at Paris and became known c.1880 as the ...

France, Anatole

(Encyclopedia)France, Anatole zhäk, tēbōˈ [key], 1844–1924, French writer. He was probably the most prominent French man of letters of his time. Among his best-remembered works is L'Île des pingouins (1908, ...

Cézanne, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Cézanne, Paul pōl sāzänˈ [key], 1839–1906, French painter, b. Aix-en-Provence. Cézanne was the leading figure in the revolution toward abstraction in modern painting. Cézanne's influence on...

Strindberg, Johan August

(Encyclopedia)Strindberg, Johan August strĭndˈbərg, Swed. yo͞oˈhän ouˈgəst strĭndˈbĕrˌyə [key], 1849–1912, Swedish dramatist and novelist. He was a master of the Swedish language and an innovator in ...

French Academy

(Encyclopedia)French Academy (L'Académie française), learned society of France. It is one of the five societies of the Institut de France. The work of the French Academy has chiefly consisted of the preparation...

French literature

(Encyclopedia)French literature, writings in medieval French dialects and standard modern French. Writings in Provençal and Breton are considered separately, as are works in French produced abroad (as at Canadian ...

Browse by Subject