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Catalan literature

(Encyclopedia)Catalan literature, like the Catalan language, developed in close connection with that of Provence. In both regions the rhymed songs of the troubadours flourished as an art form from the 11th to the 1...

Joyce, James

(Encyclopedia)Joyce, James, 1882–1941, Irish novelist. Perhaps the most influential and significant novelist of the 20th cent., Joyce was a master of the English language, exploiting all of its resources. His nov...

Welsh literature

(Encyclopedia)Welsh literature, literary writings in the Welsh language. In the 20th cent. attempts at language purification, interest in Welsh mythology, and a turning away from earlier Welsh puritanism accompan...

Persian literature

(Encyclopedia)Persian literature, literary writings in the Persian language, nearly all of it written in the area traditionally known as Persia, now Iran. The 15th cent. period of the second Turko-Tartar invasi...

Orkney Islands

(Encyclopedia)Orkney Islands, archipelago and council area (1991 pop. 19,650), 376 sq mi (974 sq km), N Scotland, consisting of about 70 islands in the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, N of Scottish mainland acros...

Araucanians

(Encyclopedia)Araucanians əroukänˈēən [key], South American people, occupying most of S central Chile at the time of the Spanish conquest (1540). The Araucanians were an agricultural people living in small set...

Bulgarian literature

(Encyclopedia)Bulgarian literature. For early ecclesiastical writings, see Church Slavonic. Modern Bulgarian literature stems from the work of Father Paisi, who in 1762 began his history of the Slav Bulgarians. The...

Spenser, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Spenser, Edmund, 1552?–1599, English poet, b. London. He was the friend of men eminent in literature and at court, including Gabriel Harvey, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Robert Sidney,...

Petrarch

(Encyclopedia)Petrarch fränchĕsˈkō pāträrˈkä [key], 1304–74, Italian poet and humanist, one of the great figures of Italian literature. He spent his youth in Tuscany and Avignon and at Bologna. He returne...

Hugo, Victor Marie, Vicomte

(Encyclopedia)Hugo, Victor Marie, Vicomte hyo͞oˈgō, Fr. vēktôrˈ märēˈ vēkôNtˈ ügōˈ [key], 1802–85, French poet, dramatist, and novelist, b. Besançon. His father was a general under Napoleon. As a ...