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literature

(Encyclopedia)literature. For the literature of England, see English literature; for that of Germany, see German literature, and so forth. For the forms of literary art, see biography, essay, novel, theater, letter...

poetry

(Encyclopedia)poetry. For lyric poetry, see ballad; elegy; hymn; lyric; ode; pastoral; sonnet. For narrative poetry, see chansons de geste; epic; idyl; romance. Dramatic poetry is incidentally treated in the articl...

pentameter

(Encyclopedia)pentameter pĕntămˈətər [key] [Gr.,=measure of five], in prosody, a line to be scanned in five feet (see versification). The third line of Thomas Nashe's “Spring” is in pentameter: “Cold dot...

Villon, François

(Encyclopedia)Villon, François fräNswäˈ vēyôNˈ [key], 1431–1463?, French poet, b. Paris, whose original name was François de Montcorbier or François Des Loges. One of the earliest great poets of France, ...

Provençal literature

(Encyclopedia)Provençal literature, vernacular literature of S France. Provençal, or Occitan, as the language is now often called, appears to have been the first vernacular tongue used in French commerce and lite...

Chaucer, Geoffrey

(Encyclopedia)Chaucer, Geoffrey jĕfˈrē chôˈsər, c.1340–1400, English poet, one of the most important figures in English literature. To Chaucer's final period, in which he achieved his fullest artistic pow...

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