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Macdonald, George

(Encyclopedia)Macdonald, George, 1824–1905, Scottish author. Ordained a Congregational minister, he eventually abandoned his vocation to become a writer and freelance preacher. His first published works were seve...

Johnson, Lionel Pigot

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Lionel Pigot, 1867–1902, British poet and critic, b. Broadstairs, Kent, educated at Oxford. He lived an ascetic, scholarly life in London, converting to Roman Catholicism in 1891. His keen ...

Arany, János

(Encyclopedia)Arany, János yäˈnôsh ŏˈrŏnyə [key], 1817–82, Hungarian poet. Arany is considered one of the founders of modern Hungarian poetry. He was an actor, notary, editor, and professor of Hungarian l...

Mufaddaliyat

(Encyclopedia)Mufaddaliyat mō– [key], great Arabic anthology compiled by the celebrated philologist Al Mufaddal ad-Dabbi (d. c.775). It contains 126 poems, some complete odes, others fragmentary. They are all of...

Hamasa

(Encyclopedia)Hamasa hämäˈsä, həmäˈsə [key] [Arab.,=valor], one of the great anthologies of Arabic literature. It was gathered together in the 9th cent. by Abu Tammam when he was snowbound in Hamadan, where...

Hölderlin, Friedrich

(Encyclopedia)Hölderlin, Friedrich frēˈdrĭkh hölˈdərlĭn [key], 1770–1843, German lyric poet. Befriended and influenced by Schiller, Hölderlin produced, before the onset of insanity at 36, lofty yet subje...

Gumilev, Nikolai Stepanovich

(Encyclopedia)Gumilev, Nikolai Stepanovich nyĭkəlīˈ styĭpäˈnəvĭch go͞omēlyôfˈ [key], 1886–1921, Russian poet. With his wife, the poet Anna Akhmatova, and Gorodetsky Gumilev, he founded the Acmeist sc...

Guo Moruo

(Encyclopedia)Guo Moruo or Kuo Mo-jo both: gwôˈ môrhwôˈ, –zhôˈ [key], 1892–1978, Chinese writer and scholar. He co-founded the Creation Society, which promoted a romantic style of writing. His love stori...

Eratosthenes

(Encyclopedia)Eratosthenes ĕrətŏsˈthənēz [key], c.275–c.195 b.c., Greek scholar, b. Cyrene. A pupil of Callimachus in Athens, he became (c.240 b.c.) head of the library at Alexandria. Known for his versatil...

Huidobro, Vicente

(Encyclopedia)Huidobro, Vicente vēsānˈtā wēᵺōˈbrō [key], 1893–1948, Chilean poet, founder of the aesthetic movement known as creacionismo, which emphasized the value of the poet as verbal magician, expl...