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Levelers

(Encyclopedia)Levelers or Levellers, English Puritan sect active at the time of the English civil war. The name was apparently applied to them in 1647, in derision of their beliefs in equality. The leader of the mo...

Marlowe, Christopher

(Encyclopedia)Marlowe, Christopher, 1564–93, English dramatist and poet, b. Canterbury. Probably the greatest English dramatist before Shakespeare, Marlowe, a shoemaker's son, was educated at Cambridge and he wen...

Scythia

(Encyclopedia)Scythia sĭthˈēə [key], ancient region of Eurasia, extending from the Danube on the west to the borders of China on the east. The Scythians flourished from the 8th to the 4th cent. b.c. They spoke ...

Salinger, J. D.

(Encyclopedia)Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David Salinger) sălˈĭnjər [key], 1919–2010, American novelist and short-story writer, b. New York City. His considerable literary stature rests on a small but extremely i...

Nibelungen

(Encyclopedia)Nibelungen –lētˌ [key] [song of the Nibelungen] is a long Middle High German epic by a south German poet of the early 13th cent. It includes pagan legends and traditions but is patently the produc...

Céline, Louis Ferdinand

(Encyclopedia)Céline, Louis Ferdinand lwē fĕrdēnNˈ sālēnˈ [key], 1894–1961, French author, whose real name was Louis Ferdinand Destouches. Céline wrote grim, scatological, and blackly funny novels. His f...

Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da

(Encyclopedia)Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da äˌmārēˈjē [key], 1571–1610, Italian painter. His surname, Caravaggio, came from his birthplace. After an apprenticeship in Milan, he arrived (1592) in Rome w...

Whitman, Walt

(Encyclopedia)Whitman, Walt (Walter Whitman), 1819–92, American poet, b. West Hills, N.Y. Considered by many to be the greatest of all American poets, Walt Whitman celebrated the freedom and dignity of the indivi...

Dickinson, Emily

(Encyclopedia)Dickinson, Emily, 1830–86, American poet, b. Amherst, Mass. She is widely considered one of the greatest poets in American literature. Her unique, gemlike lyrics are distillations of profound feelin...

Handel, George Frideric

(Encyclopedia)Handel, George Frideric hănˈdəl [key], 1685–1759, English composer, b. Halle, Germany. Handel was one of the greatest masters of baroque music, most widely celebrated for his majestic oratorio Me...