Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia by Bruce Murphy, Bruce Murphy (Editor)

From the Publisher

Long recognized as the outstanding reference on world literature, Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia is the one against which all others are measured, and is the single-most complete one-volume encyclopedia available for those with a serious interest in the subject.

The entries explore all aspects of literature from around the world: biographies of poets and playwrights, novelists and belle trists; plot synopses and character sketches from important works; historical data on literary schools, movements, terms and awards; myths and legends; and more.

Completely revised and updated, this fourth edition captures the diversity of today's canon, with greater attention to African-American, Eastern, Middle Eastern, African, South American, Eastern European and women's literature.

For nearly 50 years, this unique single-volume encyclopedia of world literature has been hailed as the best available. Here are over 10,000 informative entries, covering everything a reader could wish to know:

• Biographies of poets, playwrights, novelists, essayists and belle trists from around the world and through the ages, from Aristophanes to Toni Morrison, from Chuang Tzu to Juan Rulfo.
• Plot summaries of important literary works, ranging from Beowulf to Wuthering Heights to Things Fall Apart.
• Sketches of principal characters from literature, from Salome to Leopold Bloom.
• Myth, legend and folklore, covering everything from Isis to the Midgard Serpentto to the paladins.
• Biographies of artists, musicians, philosophers and other historical personages ranging from Roman emperors to U.S. presidents who figure prominently in literature.
• Accounts of significant schools and movements in literature, such as the Bloomsbury Group and the Beat writers.
• Original titles, as well as the most familiar English titles, for works in languages other than English.
• Recipients of major literary awards, including Pulitzer and Nobel prize winners.

And more...

For nearly 50 years, William Rose Benet and the editors who succeeded him have upheld the level of quality that distinguished the original Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia. Like its predecessors, this new edition will teach and delight, illuminate and expound, and enrich the pleasure of reading in countless ways.

Booknews

<:st> Previous editions are cited in This is a completely revised edition of the classic reference on world literature first published a half-century ago to serve general readers as a "well-organized supplementary memory, in one volume." Entries encompass all aspects of literature, including biographies of poets, playwrights, novelists, and belletrists; plot synopses and character sketches from important works; historical data on literary schools, movements, terms, and awards; and myths and legends. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Product Details

• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia
Fourth EditionAakjaer, Jeppe (1866-1930)Danish poet and novelist. As a novelist, Aakjaer was intensely concerned with social misery and need for reform. Vredens born (TheChildren of the Wrath, 1904) described the oppressed existence by servants on peasant farms. He is best known, however, for his lyric poetry, in which he celebrates the courage of the peasants and the beauties of his native Jutland. A merry simplicity characterizes the poetry of such collections as Fri felt (1906), Rugens sange (1906; tr Songs of the Heath, 1962) and Den Sommer og den Eng (1910).

Aaron In the Bible, the brother of Moses, the founder of the priesthood and the first high priest.
He helped Moses in calling down the Ten Plagues and leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt (c1200 bc). Aaron directed the construction of the golden calf, which was idolatrously worshiped by the Israelites as the god of their deliverance, while Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments (Ex. 32). Aaron did not receive an inheritance in Canaan, as a punishment for doubting God's ability to bring water out of a rock.

Aaron's Rod The name given to the rod of the tribe of Levi, used by Aaron during the Ten Plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea. When Aaron left his rod in front of the Ark, in the Tabernacle, it miraculously blossomed and bore almonds. This was interpreted as evidence of Jehovah's choice of Aaron as high priest (Num. 17:8).

Abaddon The angel of the bottomless pit in The Revelation of St. John the Divine. Milton uses the name for the bottomless pit itself.

Abbassids The secondlong dynasty (thirty-seven Caliphs, 750-1258) of the Muslim Empire. They claimed descent from Abbas (566-652), eldest uncle of Muhammed. Their reign was most firmly established and the court at Baghdad most splendid under Haroun-al-Raschid (785-809), the Caliph described in the Arabian Nights, and his son Mamun (813-833).

Abbaye Group A group of French writers and artists. The members bought a house in Cr‚teil near Paris and called it L'Abbaye. They lived there communally for fourteen months (1906-7), supporting themselves in part by printing and selling books. The Abbaye press issued La Vie unanime (1908) of Jules Romains, a frequent visitor to the Abbaye. After their separation, members of the group were influential in spreading Romains's ideas of unanimism. Among the group were Ren‚ Arcos (1881-1948), Georges Duhamel, Luc Durtain (1881-1959), Pierre-Jean Jouve, Charles Vildrac (1882-1971), and the cubist painter Albert Gleizes (1881-1953). The group's experience was the subject of Duhamel's novel Le Desert de BiŠvres (1937).

Abbey, Edward (1927-1989) American novelist and essayist. Abbey is best known for his celebration of southwest Utah's slickrock country. One of the more overtly political modern American nature writers, he advocated the preservation of the wilderness and was a tireless critic of the forces which, in his view, desecrated it. In Desert Solitaire (1968), a nonfiction account of summers spent as a ranger in Arches National Monument, Abbey portrays a starkly beautiful desert landscape that is threatened by so-called "industrial tourism." The Monkey-Wrench Gang (1975), a novel about a merry band of eco-terrorists, was taken up by the environmental group, Earth First!. Novels like The Brave Cowboy (1956) and Fire on the Mountain (1962), further explore the fate of strong-willed individualists confronting the technocratic forces of industry and government. rb

Abbey Theatre The famous Dublin playhouse, which opened in 1904 with performances of W. B. Yeats's On Baile's Strand (1904). The theatre, which was founded for the production of plays by and about the Irish, was an outgrowth of older literary and dramatic groups, the Irish Literary Theatre (1899) and the Irish National Theatre Society (1902), the latter of which was founded by Yeats and Lady Gregory. Thanks to a subsidy from Mrs. A. E. F. Horniman, the Irish National Theatre Society was given use of the theatre; in 1910, with funds from public subscription, the company purchased the theatre. The building burned in 1951 and was reopened in 1966. Among the many dramatists associated with the early days of the theatre were J. M. Synge, Sean O'Casey, A.E. (q.v.), Padraic Colum, and G. B. Shaw. See Irish Renaissance.

Abbott, George (1887-1995) American playwright, producer, and director. Abbott became well-known on Broadway as the coauthor and director of popular plays including Broadway (1926) and Coquette (1928). His productions of Three Men on a Horse (1935) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938), based on A Comedy of Errors, established him as New York's high priest of farce. Other Abbott hits, most of which were collaborations, include Call Me Madam (1950), The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), and Fiorello! (1959; with Jerome Weidman), for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He also wrote a candid autobiography, Mister Abbott (1963), and a novel, Try-Out (1979). In 1983 there was a revival of the musical On Your Toes, and one of Damn Yankees ten years later. Abbott received a Drama League award in 1994.

Abdera A maritime city of Thrace whose inhabitants were proverbial in ancient times for their stupidity. Abderitan laughter came to mean scoffing or incessant laughter. It was so called because Abdera was the birthplace of Democritus, the laughing philosopher, who is regarded as the greatest among the Greek physical philosophers.

Abderite, The See Democritus.

Abednego See Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Abe Kobo((1924- ) Japanese novelist and playwright. Raised in prewar Manchuria, Abe Ko_bo_ represented the perpetual outsider in the Japanese literary world of the 1960s and 1970s. Trained as a doctor (and graduated with the promise that he would never practice) Abe's novels and plays are characterized by clinical observations, scientific nomenclature, and avant-garde techniques. Among his representative works are Suna no onna (1962; tr The Woman in the Dunes, 1964), Ta'nin no kao (1964; tr The Face of Another, 1966), Moetsukita chizu (1967; tr The Ruined Map, 1969), Mikkai (1978; tr Secret Rendezvous, 1979) and the play Tomodachi (1967; tr Friends, 1969). Abe's works, many of which have been turned into films under the direction of Teshigahara Hiroshi, deal with such problems of modern urban life as alienation, loneliness, and loss of individual identity. rc

Abel See Cain.

Ab‚lard, Pierre (1079-1142) French scholastic philosopher and theologian. Ab‚lard studied under Ros- cellinus (b. 1050), exponent of extreme nominalism, then under William of Champeaux (1070-1121), supporter of realism. In this controversy of medieval theology, Ab‚lard evolved a middle position called conceptualism, holding that both particular objects and universal concepts are real. However, he angered the clergy, who emphasized faith rather than dialectic argument and proof, with his rationalistic approach to church dogma, especially the dogma of the Trinity. Thus Saint Bernard of Clairvaux persecuted him as a heretic, and Ab‚lard died on his way to Rome to appeal to the Pope against a condemnation on this charge. Nevertheless, Ab‚lard had been extremely popular as a lecturer; when he had to leave Notre Dame, his students followed him to various monasteries. His influence and his writings, such as Sic et non, increased the popularity of Aristotelian logic over that of Platonic theory.

His popular fame, however, resulted from his tragic love affair with H‚lo‹se. Moved by his Historia calamitatum (c1134), H‚lo‹se wrote to him, and they exchanged their famous letters of love and suffering, including Ab‚lard's advice on how she should conduct the convent he had turned over to her in 1129.

Abercrombie, LascellesSee Georgians.

Abie's Irish Rose (1922) A comedy by Anne Nichols. It had one of the longest records of performance (2,327) in the history of the theatre. A Jewish boy and an Irish Catholic girl, fearing to tell their fathers that they are in love, are married by a Methodist minister. The play formed the basis for a novel (1927), a radio program (1942), and a movie (1946).

Abigail In the Old Testament, the wife of Nabal and later of David (1 Sam. 25:3). Abigail referred to herself as the handmaid of David. In Elizabethan usage, the name came to signify a lady's maid. It is used in works by Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, Swift, and Fielding. The name was further popularized by Abigail Hill (Mrs. Masham), the influential waiting-woman to Queen Anne.

Abouzeid, Leila (1950-) Moroccan writer. Her novella, In the Year of the Elephant: A Morocccan Woman's Journey Toward Independence (1989) is the first work by a Moroccan woman to be translated from Arabic into English. It examines pressing problems that have faced Morocco since independence from France (1956): establishing a new national identity after a century and a half of colonialism; the appropriation of Arabic as a national language; and the role of feminism, particularly that of women as political activists, within Islamic culture. Abouzeid translated The Autobiography of Malcolm X into Arabic.Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia
Fourth Edition. Copyright (c) by Bruce Murphy . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.