Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) reading, process of mentally interpreting written symbols. Facility in reading is an essential factor in educational progress, and instruction in this basic skill is a primary purpose of elementary ed...

(Encyclopedia) Goliardic songs gōlēärˈdĭk [key], Late Latin poetry of the “wandering scholars,” or Goliards. The Goliards included university students who went from one European university to another, schol...

(Encyclopedia) Shimazaki Toson shēˈmäˈzäˈkē tōˈsōn [key], 1872–1943, Japanese poet and novelist. A pioneer in the establishment of a new Japanese verse form, Toson later turned his talents to prose ficti...

(Encyclopedia) Cudworth, Ralph, 1617–88, English theologian and philosopher. He was a noted representative of the Cambridge Platonists. Cudworth's most ambitious work, The True Intellectual System of the Universe,...

(Encyclopedia) Tyutchev, Feodor Ivanovich fyôˈdər ēväˈnəvĭch tyo͞oˈchĭf [key], 1803–73, Russian lyric poet and essayist. Most of Tyutchev's adult life was spent abroad in the diplomatic service. Althoug...

(Encyclopedia) Wharton, Edith Newbold Jones, 1862–1937, American novelist, b. New York City, noted for her subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted fictional studies of New York society at the turn of the 20th cent. T...

(Encyclopedia) Proust, Marcel pro͞ost [key], 1871–1922, French novelist, b. Paris. He is one of the great literary figures of the modern age. Born to wealthy bourgeois parents, he suffered delicate health as a c...

(Encyclopedia) Owen, Wilfred, 1893–1918, English poet, b. Oswestry, Shropshire. He served as a company commander in the Artist's Rifles during World War I and was killed in France on Nov. 4, 1918, one week before ...

(Encyclopedia) Hutterian Brethren hətērˈēən [key], a body of Christians practicing strict communism based on religious principles. The Brethren are descendants of those Moravian Anabaptists who were followers o...

(Encyclopedia) Seurat, Georges zhôrzh söräˈ [key], 1859–91, French neoimpressionist painter. He devised the pointillist technique of painting in tiny dots of pure color. His method, called divisionism, was a s...