Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Vesta, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Vesta vĕsˈtə [key], in astronomy, the fourth asteroid to be discovered. It was found in 1807 by H. Olbers. It is the third largest asteroid in size, with a diameter of c.326 mi (525 km). Its averag...

Abercrombie, Lascelles

(Encyclopedia)Abercrombie, Lascelles lăsˈəlz [key], 1881–1938, English poet and critic. Complex and cerebral in style, his poetry often expresses his distaste for 20th-century industrialism. His volumes of poe...

Snodgrass, W. D.

(Encyclopedia)Snodgrass, W. D. (William DeWitt Snodgrass), 1926–2009, American poet and translator, b. Wilkinsburg, Pa., grad. Univ. of Iowa, 1959. He is particularly known for his debut book, Heart's Needle (195...

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...

Gregory, Horace

(Encyclopedia)Gregory, Horace, 1898–1982, American poet and critic, b. Milwaukee, Wis., grad. Univ. of Wisconsin, 1923. His poetry is noted for its dramatic structure and penetrating insights into the harshness o...

Bodmer, Johann Jakob

(Encyclopedia)Bodmer, Johann Jakob yōˈhän yäˈkôp bōdˈmər [key], 1698–1783, Swiss critic, poet, and editor. He translated Milton's Paradise Lost and Middle High German poetry. Inspired by the Spectator, B...

Diego, Gerardo

(Encyclopedia)Diego, Gerardo hārärˈdō dyāˈgō [key], 1896–1987, Spanish poet, b. Santander. Although he embraced many new poetic credos, his poetry is classified into two styles. His traditional poetry of r...

Monroe, Harriet

(Encyclopedia)Monroe, Harriet, 1860–1936, American editor, critic, and poet, b. Chicago. In 1912 she founded Poetry: a Magazine of Verse, which paid and encouraged both established and new poets. Monroe's literar...

Rich, Adrienne

(Encyclopedia)Rich, Adrienne, 1929–2012, American poet, b. Baltimore, grad. Radcliffe, 1951. From the 1970s her exquisitely wrought verse became looser and more personal as her works increasingly reflected femini...

Muldoon, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Muldoon, Paul, 1951–, Irish poet, b. Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland, B.A. Queen's Univ., Belfast, 1973. Muldoon worked as an arts producer for the BBC (1973–86), then taught at the Univ. of East Ang...

Browse by Subject