Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) poet laureate lôˈrēĭt [key], title conferred in Britain by the monarch on a poet whose duty it is to write commemorative odes and verse. It is an outgrowth of the medieval English custom of having...

(Encyclopedia) Jaspers, Karl kärl yäsˈpərs [key], 1883–1969, German philosopher and psychopathologist, b. Oldenburg. After receiving his medical degree (1909) he became (1914) lecturer in psychology and in 192...

(Encyclopedia) Calatrava, Santiago, 1951–, Spanish architect, grad. Institute of Architecture, Valencia (1974), Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich (Ph.D., 1981). He opened an architectural and engineering pr...

(Encyclopedia) McMurtry, Larry Jeff, 1936–2021, American novelist, b. Wichita Falls, Tx., grad. North Texas State Univ. (B.A., 1958), Rice Un...

(Encyclopedia) polytheism pŏlˈēthēĭzəm [key], belief in a plurality of gods in which each deity is distinguished by special functions. The gods are particularly synonymous with function in the Vedic religion (...

(Encyclopedia) filibuster, term used to designate obstructionist tactics in legislative assemblies. It has particular reference to the U.S. Senate, where the tradition of unlimited debate is very strong. It was not ...

(Encyclopedia) gospel music, American religious musical form that owes much of its origin to the Christian conversion of West Africans enslaved in the American South. Gospel music partly evolved from the songs slave...

(Encyclopedia) Kennan, George Frost, 1904–2005, U.S. diplomat and historian, b. Milwaukee, Wis., grad. Princeton, 1925. A brilliant strategist and among the most influential and intellectual Americans in the 20th-...

(Encyclopedia) James, Henry, 1843–1916, American novelist and critic, b. New York City. A master of the psychological novel, James was an innovator in technique and one of the most distinctive prose stylists in En...

(Encyclopedia) Veda vāˈdə, vēˈdə [key] [Sanskrit,=knowledge, cognate with English wit, from a root meaning know], oldest scriptures of Hinduism and the most ancient religious texts in an Indo-European language...