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Philips, John

(Encyclopedia)Philips, John, 1676–1709, English poet. He was one of the few to write in blank verse in an age when the heroic couplet was the standard form. His Splendid Shilling (1701, 1705) is a parody of Milto...

Roscommon, Wentworth Dillon, 4th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Roscommon, Wentworth Dillon, 4th earl of rŏskŏmˈən [key], 1633?–1685, English poet and scholar, b. Ireland. He was one of the first to praise Milton's genius. Besides making a blank-verse transl...

Pythian games

(Encyclopedia)Pythian games pĭthˈēən [key], in ancient Greece, games held at Delphi every four years (the third of each Olympiad). They included musical, literary, and athletic contests. The games honored Apoll...

Niobe

(Encyclopedia)Niobe nīˈōbē [key], in Greek mythology, queen of Thebes, wife of Amphion and daughter of Tantalus. The mother of six sons and six daughters, she boasted of her fruitfulness, saying that Leto had o...

Aetolia

(Encyclopedia)Aetolia ētōlˈyə [key], region of ancient Greece, N of the Gulf of Corinth and the Gulf of Calydon, E of the Achelous River (separating it from Acarnania). Little is known of the early population o...

Orpheus

(Encyclopedia)Orpheus ôrˈfēəs, ôrˈfyo͞os [key], in Greek mythology, celebrated Thracian musician. He was the son of Calliope by Apollo or, according to another legend, by Oeagrus, a king of Thrace. Supposedl...

Arne, Thomas Augustine

(Encyclopedia)Arne, Thomas Augustine ärn [key], 1710–78, English composer. Arne composed the song Rule, Britannia, based on an ode by James Thomson. He composed new music for an adaptation of Milton's masque Com...

Knight, George Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Knight, George Wilson, 1897–1985, English writer and critic, grad. Oxford (B.A., 1923; M.A., 1925). He wrote numerous books and essays on English literature, including The Wheel of Fire (1930), The ...

Smith, Logan Pearsall

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Logan Pearsall, 1865–1946, Anglo-American author, b. Millville, N.J. After 1888 he lived in England, studied at Oxford, and became a man of letters. His brief and exquisite essays were collec...

Raphael

(Encyclopedia)Raphael răfˈēəl, rāˈ– [key], archangel. He is prominent in the book of Tobit, as the companion of Tobias, as the healer of Tobit, and as the rescuer of Sara from Asmodeus. Milton made him a fe...