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James I, king of Scotland

(Encyclopedia)James I, 1394–1437, king of Scotland (1406–37), son and successor of Robert III. King Robert feared for the safety of James because the king's brother, Robert Stuart, 1st duke of Albany, who was v...

Millay, Edna St. Vincent

(Encyclopedia)Millay, Edna St. Vincent mĭlāˈ [key], 1892–1950, American poet, b. Rockland, Maine, grad. Vassar College, 1917. One of the most popular poets of her era, Millay was admired as much for the bohemi...

Locke, Alain LeRoy

(Encyclopedia)Locke, Alain LeRoy, 1885–1954, American writer, educator, philosopher, and cultural critic, b. Philadelphia, grad. Harvard (A.B., 1907; Ph.D., 1918), first African-American Rhodes Scholar at Oxford ...

Roland

(Encyclopedia)Roland rōˈlənd [key], the great French hero of the medieval Charlemagne cycle of chansons de geste, immortalized in the Chanson de Roland (11th or 12th cent.). Existence of an early Roland poem is ...

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny Aleksandrovich

(Encyclopedia)Yevtushenko, Yevgeny Aleksandrovich yĕvˌto͞oshĕngˈkō, Rus. yĭvgāˈnyē əlyĭksänˈdrəvĭch yĭvtəshĕnˈkō [key], 1933–2017, Russian poet, b. Zima Junction, Siberia. Along with Andrei V...

Tasso, Torquato

(Encyclopedia)Tasso, Torquato tōrkwäˈtō täsˈsō [key], 1544–95, Italian poet, one of the foremost writers and a tragic figure of the Renaissance. Educated in Naples by Jesuits, he later studied law and phil...

criticism

(Encyclopedia)criticism, the interpretation and evaluation of literature and the arts. It exists in a variety of literary forms: dialogues (Plato, John Dryden), verse (Horace, Alexander Pope), letters (John Keats),...

Portuguese literature

(Encyclopedia)Portuguese literature, writings in Portuguese. The literature of Brazil is considered separately (see Brazilian literature). The modern period in Portuguese letters dates from the establishment o...

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...

American literature

(Encyclopedia)American literature, literature in English produced in what is now the United States of America. The years immediately after World War I brought a highly vocal rebellion against established socia...