Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) short story, brief prose fiction. The term covers a wide variety of narratives—from stories in which the main focus is on the course of events to studies of character, from the “short short” sto...

(Encyclopedia) Saxe-Gotha săks-gōˈthə [key], Ger. Sachsen-Gotha, former duchy, Thuringia, central Germany. A possession of the Ernestine branch of the house of Wettin, it passed in the 16th cent. to the dukes of...

(Encyclopedia) Winter Park, residential and resort city (1990 pop. 22,242), Orange co., central Fla., just N of Orlando in a citrus area; settled in the 1850s, inc. 1887. It is the seat of Rollins College. Within th...

(Encyclopedia) Ariosto, Ludovico lo͞odōvēˈkō äryôsˈtō [key], 1474–1533, Italian epic and lyric poet. As a youth he was a favorite at the court of Ferrara; later he was in the service of Ippolito I, Cardin...

(Encyclopedia) Harington, Sir John, 1560?–1612, English author. He spent most of his career at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, where he became known for his indelicate humor. His Rabelaisian Metamorphosis of Ajax ...

(Encyclopedia) madrigal, name for two different forms of Italian music, one related to the poetic madrigal in the 14th cent., the other the most common form of secular vocal music in the 16th cent. The poetic madrig...

(Encyclopedia) Cornwall, industrial city, SE Ont., Canada, on the St. Lawrence River. It manufactures cotton and rayon textiles, paper, chemicals, furniture, and elect...

(Encyclopedia) Pulci, Luigi lwēˈjē po͞olˈchē [key], 1432–84, Italian poet. Of an impoverished literary family, he became a protégé of Lorenzo de' Medici and a friend of Poliziano. The most noted work of hi...

(Encyclopedia) Berni, Francesco fränchāsˈkō bĕrˈnē [key], 1497?–1535, Italian humorous poet, a priest. He was noted for his burlesque capitoli, light, often ribald verses in terza rima. He revised Boiardo's...

(Encyclopedia) Rutherford, Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron, 1871–1937, British physicist, b. New Zealand. Rutherford left New Zealand in 1895, having earned three degrees from the Univ. of New Zealand but having fail...