Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Shafak, Elif, 1971–, Turkish novelist who writes in Turkish and English, b. Strasbourg, France. The most widely read woman novelist in Turkey, she has written nearly 20 books, most of them novels. H...

(Encyclopedia) Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas nēkôläˈ bwälōˈ-dāprāōˈ [key], 1636–1711, French literary critic and poet. He was the spokesman of classicism, drawing his principles from his contemporaries, a...

(Encyclopedia) Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner, 1822–88, English jurist and historian, educated at Cambridge. A pioneer in the historical and comparative study of institutions, he viewed the history of laws as the m...

(Encyclopedia) Benedict XVI, 1927–2022, pope (2005–13) and Roman Catholic theologian, a German (b. Marktl am Inn, Bavaria) named Josef (or Joseph) Alois Ratzinger;...

(Encyclopedia) Chapin, Schuyler Garrison skīˈlər, chāˈpĭn [key], 1923–2009, American operatic manager and cultural impresario, b. New York City. The scion of an old and distinguished American family, he stud...

(Encyclopedia) social contract, agreement or covenant by which men are said to have abandoned the “state of nature” to form the society in which they now live. The theory of such a contract, first formulated by ...

(Encyclopedia) Utopia yo͞otōˈpēə [key] [Gr.,=no place], title of a book by Sir Thomas More, published in Latin in 1516. The work pictures an ideal state where all is ordered for the best for humanity as a whole...

(Encyclopedia) Abe, Kobo kōˈbō äˈbā [key], pseud. of Kimifusa Abe, 1924–93, Japanese novelist and dramatist. Although Abe trained as a doctor, he never practiced medi...

(Encyclopedia) Gunn, Thom (Thomson William Gunn), 1929–2004, Anglo-American poet, b. Gravesend, Kent, England, grad. Trinity College, Cambridge (1953). Gunn published his first volume of poems, the critically accl...

(Encyclopedia) Lowell, Josephine Shaw, 1843–1905, American political reformer, b. Roxbury, Mass. Lowell, brother of Robert Gould Shaw and widow of Colonel Charle...