Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Lorde, Audre, 1934–1992, African-American poet, essayist, and civil rights activist, b. New York City, grad. Columbia (M.L.S. 1961). Lorde was born to...

(Encyclopedia) Opus Dei ōˈpəs dāˈē [key] [Lat.,=work of God], Roman Catholic organization, particularly influential in Spain, officially the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei. Opus Dei was founded in 19...

(Encyclopedia) airport or airfield, place for landing and departure of aircraft, usually with facilities for housing and maintaining planes and for receiving and discharging passengers and cargo. There are about 16,...

(Encyclopedia) Jacobs, Jane, 1916–2006, American-Canadian urbanologist, b. Scranton, Pa., as Jane Butzner. She moved to New York City in the 1930s, was an editor (1952–64) of Architectural Forum magazine, and wr...

(Encyclopedia) saga, in Old Norse literature, especially Icelandic and Norwegian, narrative in prose or verse, centering on a legendary or historical figure or family. Sagas may be divided into sagas of the kings, m...

(Encyclopedia) Schliemann, Heinrich hīnˈrĭkh shlēˈmän [key], 1822–90, German archaeologist, discoverer of the ruins of Troy. He accumulated a fortune in the indigo trade and as a military contractor and reti...

(Encyclopedia) Teller, Edward, 1908–2003, American physicist, b. Budapest, Hungary, Ph.D. Univ. of Leipzig, 1930, where he studied under Werner Heisenberg. Fleeing the Nazis, he came to the United States in 1935 a...

(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...

(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),...

(Encyclopedia) Whistler, James Abbott McNeill, 1834–1903, American painter, etcher, wit, and eccentric, b. Lowell, Mass. Whistler was dismissed from West Point for insufficient knowledge of chemistry and from the ...