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Ercilla y Zúñiga, Alonso de

(Encyclopedia)Ercilla y Zúñiga, Alonso de älōnˈsō ᵺā ārthēˈlyä ē tho͞oˈnyēgä [key], 1533–94, Spanish poet. In Chile (1556–63) he fought against the Araucanian, and while there he began the epi...

Karnal

(Encyclopedia)Karnal kərnälˈ [key], city (1991 pop. 176,131), Haryana state, N central India. The town's name is derived from Karna, the rival of Arjuna in the Sanskrit Mahabharata epic. It is on the Delhi-Ambal...

Bayard, horse, in chivalric romance

(Encyclopedia)Bayard bäyärˈdō [key], in chivalric romance, a bay horse, remarkable for his spirit and for his unique ability to fit his size to his rider. He appears in the 12th-century French epic Renaud de Mo...

Brooks, Maria Gowen

(Encyclopedia)Brooks, Maria Gowen gouˈən [key], 1795?–1845, American poet, b. Medford, Mass. Her first collection of verse, Judith, Esther, and Other Poems (1820), was praised by Southey, who named her “Maria...

Vergil

(Encyclopedia)Vergil or Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) both: vûrˈjil [key], 70 b.c.–19 b.c., Roman poet, b. Andes dist., near Mantua, in Cisalpine Gaul; the spelling Virgil is not found earlier than the 5th ce...

Doughty, Charles Montagu

(Encyclopedia)Doughty, Charles Montagu dōˈtē, douˈtē [key], 1843–1926, English author and traveler. He is best known for his Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888), describing his life among the Bedouins. Now cons...

Ducasse, Isidore

(Encyclopedia)Ducasse, Isidore ēzēdôrˈ dükäsˈ [key], 1846–70, French poet who wrote under the name Comte de Lautréamont, or simply Lautréamont. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, he moved to Paris in 1867, whe...

Antara

(Encyclopedia)Antara äntärˈä [key], fl. 600, Arab warrior and poet, celebrated in his own day as a hero because he rose from slave birth to be a tribal chief. His poetry is represented by one poem in the Mualla...

Menéndez Pidal, Ramón

(Encyclopedia)Menéndez Pidal, Ramón rämōnˈ mānānˈdĕth pēᵺälˈ [key], 1869–1968, Spanish scholar and philologist. Menéndez Pidal was a noted authority on Spanish epic literature and the Spanish langu...

Muses

(Encyclopedia)Muses, in Greek religion and mythology, patron goddesses of the arts, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Originally only three, they were later considered as nine. Calliope was the Muse of epic poetry a...