Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Altman, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Altman, Robert, 1925–2006, American film director, b. Kansas City, Mo. One of the most original talents in late-20th-century American filmmaking, he created complex, often loosely plotted movies mar...

Southey, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Southey, Robert souˈᵺē, sŭᵺˈē [key], 1774–1843, English author. Primarily a poet, he was numbered among the so-called Lake poets. While at Oxford he formed (1794) a friendship with Coleridg...

Mapplethorpe, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Mapplethorpe, Robert māˈpəlthôrpˌ [key], 1946–89, American photographer, b. New York City. He is known for his elegantly expressive black-and-white studies of male and female nudes, flowers, an...

Mitchum, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Mitchum, Robert (Robert Charles Duran Mitchum), 1917–97, American film actor, b. Bridgeport, Conn. He found extra work and bit parts in early 1940s movies, and first achieved wide notice for his sup...

FitzRoy, Robert

(Encyclopedia)FitzRoy, Robert, 1805–65, British naval officer, meteorologist, and hydrologist. Given (1829) temporary command of the HMS Beagle, he completed a survey of the coasts of Patagonia and Tierra del Fue...

Motherwell, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Motherwell, Robert, 1915–91, American painter and writer, b. Aberdeen, Wash. Motherwell taught art at several colleges and during the early 1940s he became a cogent theoretician of abstract expressi...

Nozick, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Nozick, Robert, 1938–2002, American political philosopher, b. Brooklyn, N.Y.; grad. Columbia Univ. (B.A., 1959), Princeton (M.A., 1961; Ph.D., 1963). After teaching at Princeton and Rockefeller Univ...

Treat, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Treat, Robert, 1622?–1710, American colonial governor of Connecticut, b. England. He was taken to America when a child; his father was an early settler of Wethersfield, Conn., and a patentee of the ...

epigram

(Encyclopedia)epigram, a short, polished, pithy saying, usually in verse, often with a satiric or paradoxical twist at the end. The term was originally applied by the Greeks to the inscriptions on stones. The epigr...

Creeley, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Creeley, Robert, 1926–2005, American poet, b. Arlington, Mass. He lived in Asia, Europe, and Latin America and taught at various universities in the United States. With Charles Olson, he was a leadi...