Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) heliograph hēˈlēəgrăf [key] [Gr.,=sun-writer], signaling device using flashes of sunlight. It has two mirrors that are used to reflect sunlight on a distant point and a shutter through which the ...

(Encyclopedia) Artzybashev, Mikhail Petrovich mēkhəyēlˈ pētrôˈvĭch ärtsĭbäˈshĕf [key], 1878–1927, Russian novelist, playwright, and essayist. Artzybashev's early works were short stories in the manner...

(Encyclopedia) Olesha, Yuri, 1899–1960, Russian novelist and dramatist. In his novel Envy (1927; tr. 1936) and in his other writing, Olesha focused on the conflict between the demands of an industrialized world an...

(Encyclopedia) Dinotherium dīnəthērˈēəm [key] [Gr.,=terrible beast], extinct mammal related to the elephant, fossil remains of which have been found in Miocene and Pliocene formations of Africa, Europe, and In...

(Encyclopedia) Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Philippe Auguste Mathias, comte de fēlēpˈ ōgüstˈ mätyäsˈ kôNt də vēyāˈ də lēˈl-ädäNˈ [key], 1838–89, French novelist. His works, in the romantic style, a...

(Encyclopedia) ballade bəlädˈ [key], in literature, verse form developed in France in the 14th and 15th cent. The ballade usually contains three stanzas of eight lines with three rhymes and a four-line envoy (a s...

(Encyclopedia) Lope de Rueda lōˈpā dā ro͞oāˈᵺä [key], 1510?–1565, Spanish dramatist. A precursor of the Golden Age of Spanish literature, Rueda was an actor and a manager as well as a playwright. He is s...

(Encyclopedia) Palacio Valdés, Armando ärmänˈdō päläˈthyō väldāsˈ [key], 1853–1938, Spanish novelist and critic. He began his career with critical writings, but his reputation rests on his realistic no...

(Encyclopedia) Hesse, Eva hĕsˈə [key], 1936–70, American sculptor, b. Hamburg, Germany. Hesse's sculpture displays an antiformalism that developed in the late 1960s in reaction against conventional geometric co...

(Encyclopedia) Gobineau, Joseph Arthur, comte de zhôzĕfˈ ärtürˈ kôNt də gōbēnōˈ [key], 1816–82, French diplomat and man of letters. The chief early French proponent of the theory of Nordic supremacy, h...