Columbia Encyclopedia
Search results
400 results found
comedy
(Encyclopedia)comedy, literary work that aims primarily to provoke laughter. Unlike tragedy, which seeks to engage profound emotions and sympathies, comedy strives to entertain chiefly through criticism and ridicul...Gardiner, Silvester
(Encyclopedia)Gardiner, Silvester or Sylvester, 1708–86, American colonial physician and landowner, b. South Kingstown, R.I. He studied medicine in London and Paris, built up a large practice in Boston, and estab...Heywood, John
(Encyclopedia)Heywood, John hāˈwo͝od [key], 1497?–1580?, English dramatist. He was employed at the courts of Henry VIII and Mary I as a singer, musician, and playwright. At the accession of Elizabeth I in 1564...Ihara Saikaku
(Encyclopedia)Ihara Saikaku ēˈhäˈrä sīˈkäˈko͞o [key], 1642–93, Japanese writer. Saikaku began his literary career as a haikai [comic linked verse] poet, astonishing contemporaries with his skill at comp...black humor
(Encyclopedia)black humor, in literature, drama, and film, grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usu...Homeric Hymns
(Encyclopedia)Homeric Hymns hōmĕrˈĭk [key], name applied to a body of 34 hexameter poems falsely attributed to Homer by the ancients. Composed probably between 800 and 300 b.c., they are complimentary verses ad...Keats, Ezra Jack
(Encyclopedia)Keats, Ezra Jack, 1916–83, American author and illustrator of children's books, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., as Jacob Ezra Katz. During the Great Depression, he painted murals for the Works Progress Administr...Brome, Richard
(Encyclopedia)Brome, Richard bro͞om, brōm [key], c.1590–1652, English dramatist. He was the friend, servant, and disciple of Ben Jonson. Primarily a writer of realistic satiric comedy, picturing the life and ma...Adam de la Halle
(Encyclopedia)Adam de la Halle lə bōsüˈ [key], c.1240–1287, French dramatist and poet-musician, one of the great trouvères. Many of his songs and polyphonic motets are preserved, as is the pastoral comedy wi...Smith, Stevie
(Encyclopedia)Smith, Stevie (Margaret Florence Smith), 1902–71, English poet and novelist, b. Hull, Yorkshire. At first unnoticed as a poet, she worked in a London publisher's office until 1953. Steadily gaining ...Browse by Subject
- Earth and the Environment +-
- History +-
- Literature and the Arts +-
- Medicine +-
- People +-
- Philosophy and Religion +-
-
Places
+-
- Africa
- Asia
- Australia and Oceania
- Britain, Ireland, France, and the Low Countries
- Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Nations
- Germany, Scandinavia, and Central Europe
- Latin America and the Caribbean
- Oceans, Continents, and Polar Regions
- Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and the Balkans
- United States, Canada, and Greenland
- Plants and Animals +-
- Science and Technology +-
- Social Sciences and the Law +-
- Sports and Everyday Life +-
