Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Genet, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Genet, Jean zhənāˈ [key], 1910–86, French dramatist. Deserted by his parents as an infant, Genet spent much of his early life in reformatories and prisons. Between 1940 and 1948 he wrote several...

Genet, Edmond Charles Édouard

(Encyclopedia)Genet, Edmond Charles Édouard ĕdmôNˈ shärl ādwärˈ zhənāˈ [key], 1763–1834, French diplomat, known as Citizen Genet. He had served as a French representative in Berlin, Vienna, and St. Pet...

Rosset, Barney Lee, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Rosset, Barney Lee, Jr., 1922–2012, American publisher, b. Chicago. As head (1951–85) of Grove Press, he published literary works previously deemed too obscene or unconventional for the reading pu...

XYZ Affair

(Encyclopedia)XYZ Affair, name usually given to an incident (1797–98) in Franco-American diplomatic relations. The United States had in 1778 entered into an alliance with France, but after the outbreak of the Fre...

Artaud, Antonin

(Encyclopedia)Artaud, Antonin äNtônăNˈ ärtōˈ [key], 1896–1948, French poet, actor, and director. During the 1920s and 30s he was associated with various experimental theater groups in Paris, and he cofound...

White, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)White, Edmund (Edmund Valentine White 3d), 1940–, American writer, b. Cincinnati, B.A. Univ. of Michigan, 1962. White is one of the best known—and probably the finest stylist—of the openly gay w...

genet

(Encyclopedia)genet: see civet.

Bukowski, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Bukowski, Charles, 1920–94, American underground poet and fiction writer, b. Andernach, Germany. His family immigrated to the United States in 1922, settling in Los Angeles. A hard-drinking unskille...

Kornberg, Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Kornberg, Arthur, 1918–2007, American biochemist, b. Brooklyn, grad. College of the City of New York (B.S., 1937) and Univ. of Rochester (M.D., 1941). In 1942 he joined the U.S. Public Health Servic...

Jean de Meun

(Encyclopedia)Jean de Meun zhäN də möN [key], d. 1305, French poet, also known as Jean Chopinel (or Clopinel) of Meung-sur-Loire. He wrote the second part of the Roman de la Rose and made translations from Latin...
 

Browse by Subject