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Bellman, Carl Michael

(Encyclopedia)Bellman, Carl Michael mēˈkäĕl bĕlˈmän [key], 1740–95, Swedish poet; protégé of Gustavus III. His early poetry was chiefly religious. His dithyrambic odes in Fredmans Epistlar (1790) and Fre...

McCarthy, Joseph Raymond

(Encyclopedia)McCarthy, Joseph Raymond, 1908–57, U.S. senator from Wisconsin (1947–57), b. near Appleton, Wis. He practiced law in Wisconsin and became (1940) a circuit judge. He served with the U.S. marines in...

Mamet, David

(Encyclopedia)Mamet, David mămĕtˈ [key], 1947–, American playwright and film director, b. Chicago. He taught drama (and produced some of his early plays) at Goddard College. His work, often dealing with the su...

Godard, Jean-Luc

(Encyclopedia)Godard, Jean-Luc zhäN-lük gôdärˈ [key], 1930–, French film director and scriptwriter, b. Paris. He wrote criticism for a number of Parisian cinema journals in the early 1950s before embarking o...

Phaeophyta

(Encyclopedia)Phaeophyta fēŏfˈətə [key], phylum (division) of the kingdom Protista consisting of those organisms commonly called brown algae. Many of the world's familiar seaweeds are members of Phaeophyta. Th...

Spenser, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Spenser, Edmund, 1552?–1599, English poet, b. London. He was the friend of men eminent in literature and at court, including Gabriel Harvey, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Robert Sidney,...

Welles, Orson

(Encyclopedia)Welles, Orson, 1915–85, American actor, director, and producer, b. Kenosha, Wis. From childhood he evinced a precocious talent and lofty sense of self-assurance in theatrical matters. He began actin...

Joachim of Fiore

(Encyclopedia)Joachim of Fiore jōˈəkĭm [key], c.1132–1202, Italian Cistercian monk. He was abbot of Corazzo, Italy, but withdrew into solitude. He left scriptural commentaries prophesying a new age. In his �...

Merman, Ethel

(Encyclopedia)Merman, Ethel, 1908–84, American musical comedy star, b. Astoria, N.Y., originally named Ethel Zimmerman. Merman's theater debut was in George and Ira Gershwin's Girl Crazy (1930). Noted for her bra...

Mount Holyoke College

(Encyclopedia)Mount Holyoke College hōlˈyōk [key], at South Hadley, Mass.; for women; chartered 1836, opened 1837 as Mount Holyoke Female Seminary under Mary Lyon, rechartered as Mount Holyoke College 1893. Ther...