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Blackmore, Richard Doddridge

(Encyclopedia)Blackmore, Richard Doddridge, 1825–1900, English novelist. Although trained as a lawyer and called to the bar, he abandoned his legal career because of ill health. His reputation rests chiefly on hi...

Blind Harry

(Encyclopedia)Blind Harry or Henry the Minstrel, fl. late 15th cent., supposed Scottish poet. He is considered the author of the patriotic epic, The Wallace, which celebrates the life of Sir William Wallace. Violen...

philosophy

(Encyclopedia)philosophy [Gr.,=love of wisdom], study of the ultimate reality, causes, and principles underlying being and thinking. It has many aspects and different manifestations according to the problems involv...

Nolde, Emil

(Encyclopedia)Nolde, Emil āˈmēl nôlˈdə [key], 1867–1956, German expressionist painter and graphic artist. His original name was Emil Hansen. After teaching in Switzerland (1892–98), Nolde traveled through...

lyric

(Encyclopedia)lyric, in ancient Greece, a poem accompanied by a musical instrument, usually a lyre. Although the word is still often used to refer to the songlike quality in poetry, it is more generally used to ref...

mimicry

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Mimicry in butterflies mimicry, in biology, the advantageous resemblance of one species to another, often unrelated, species or to a feature of its own environment. (When the latter results fr...

Moseley, Henry Gwyn Jeffreys

(Encyclopedia)Moseley, Henry Gwyn Jeffreys mōzˈlē [key], 1887–1915, English physicist, grad. Trinity College, Oxford, 1910. He began his research under Ernest Rutherford while serving as lecturer at the Univ. ...

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 ...

Constant, Benjamin

(Encyclopedia)Constant, Benjamin (Henri Benjamin Constant de Rebecque) äNrēˈ bäNzhämăNˈ kôNstäNˈ də rəbĕkˈ [key], 1767–1830, French-Swiss political writer and novelist, b. Lausanne. His affair (1794...

Deluge

(Encyclopedia)Deluge dĕlˈyo͞oj [key], in the Bible, the overwhelming flood that covered the earth and destroyed every living thing except the family of Noah and the creatures in his ark. Archaeology has yielded ...