Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Whitman, Sarah Helen (Power)

(Encyclopedia)Whitman, Sarah Helen (Power), 1803–78, American poet, b. Providence, R.I. In 1828 she married a Boston lawyer, John W. Whitman; after his death (1833) she returned to Providence and devoted herself ...

Kimhi

(Encyclopedia)Kimhi kĭmˈkhē [key], family of Jewish scholars and grammarians in Spain and France. Joseph ben Isaac Kimhi, c.1105–c.1170, besides writing a Bible commentary, making numerous translations, and wr...

Rahel

(Encyclopedia)Rahel rāˈhĕl [key], variant of Rachel. ...

Joseph of Exeter

(Encyclopedia)Joseph of Exeter, fl. c.1190, English poet who wrote in Latin. He is best known for De Bello Trojano (c.1184), an epic poem in six books, written in the style of Vergil. His adventures in the Third Cr...

Mandelstam, Osip Emilyevich

(Encyclopedia)Mandelstam, Osip Emilyevich ôˈsĭp ĕmyēlˈyəvĭch mänˈdĭlstəm [key], 1892–1938, Russian poet. Mandelstam was a leader of the Acmeist school. He wrote impersonal, fatalistic, meticulously co...

Chernyshevsky, Nikolai Gavrilovich

(Encyclopedia)Chernyshevsky, Nikolai Gavrilovich nyĭkəlīˈ gəvrēˈləvĭch chĕrnĭshĕfˈskē [key], 1828–89, Russian socialist reformer. He was the leading disciple of Vissarion Belinsky inside Russia; fro...

Oldham, John, English poet and satirist

(Encyclopedia)Oldham, John, 1653–83, English poet and satirist. His best-known works are the ironical Satires against the Jesuits (1681) and A Satire against Virtue (1679). He was much admired by Dryden, who wrot...

Du Maurier, George Louis Palmella Busson

(Encyclopedia)Du Maurier, George Louis Palmella Busson dyo͞o môrˈēā [key], 1834–96, English artist and novelist, b. Paris of a French father and an English mother. He studied chemistry, but later turned to a...

Kollár, Jan

(Encyclopedia)Kollár, Jan yän kōˈlär [key], 1793–1852, Slovak poet who wrote in Czech. A Protestant minister, he was an ardent proponent of Pan-Slavism. He promoted his ideas in a famous essay on Slavonic cu...

Derzhavin, Gavril Romanovich

(Encyclopedia)Derzhavin, Gavril Romanovich gəvrēlˈ rəmäˈnəvĭch dyĭrzhäˈvĭn [key], 1743–1816, Russian classical poet. His satirical ode to Catherine II, Felitsa (1782), won her favor, and he became poe...

Browse by Subject