Columbia Encyclopedia

(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) Proust, Joseph Louis zhôzĕfˈ lwē pro͞ost [key], 1754–1826, French chemist. He was professor of chemistry at the artillery school in Segovia, Spain, and director of the laboratory of Charles IV ...

(Encyclopedia) Marcel, Étienne ātyĕnˈ märsĕlˈ [key], d. 1358, French bourgeois leader, provost of the merchants of Paris. In the States-General of 1355 he and Robert Le Coq bargained for governmental reforms ...

(Encyclopedia) Duchamp, Marcel märsĕlˈ düshäNˈ [key], 1887–1968, French painter, brother of Raymond Duchamp-Villon and half-brother of Jacques Villon. Duchamp is noted for his cubist-futurist painting Nude D...

(Encyclopedia) Marceau, Marcel märsĕlˈ märsōˈ [key], 1923–2007, French mime, b. Strasbourg as Marcel Mangel. Marceau studied under Charles Dullin and master mime Étienne Decroux in Paris. He gained renown i...

(Encyclopedia) Arland, Marcel märsĕlˈ ärlŏndˈ [key], 1899–1986, French writer. Arland was editor of the Nouvelle Revue Française (1953–77). Emphasizing a search for salvation that is both ethical and aest...

(Encyclopedia) Marcel, Gabriel märsĕlˈ [key] 1889–1973, French philosopher, dramatist, and critic, b. Paris. A leading Christian existentialist, he became a Roman Catholic in 1929. He called himself a “concr...

(Encyclopedia) Prévost, Marcel märsĕlˈ prāvōˈ [key], 1862–1941, French novelist. His novels deal chiefly with feminine questions, portraying severely what Prévost regarded as the moral frailty of modern wo...

(Encyclopedia) Cachin, Marcel märsĕlˈ käshăNˈ [key], 1869–1958, French Communist leader. An early leader of the Socialist party, he was instrumental in bringing many Socialists into the first French Communis...

(Encyclopedia) Aymé, Marcel märsĕlˈ āmāˈ [key], 1902–67, French writer. Aymé's La Table aux crevés (1929), a story of peasant life, typifies the satirical tone of his works. La Jument verte (1933, tr. The...