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Kjeld Abell
Kjeld Abell , 1901-61, Danish playwright. Abell's Melody That Got Lost (1935, tr. 1939) was an early success. Trained as a stage designer, he was an innovator in stage technique. He later turned to ethical and social drama; Anna Sophie Hedvig (1939, tr. 1944), The Queen Walks Again (1943), Si...
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Sir John Denham
Sir John Denham , 1615-69, English poet and dramatist. His fame rests largely on two works: Cooper's Hill (1642), a topographical poem, combining descriptions of scenery with moral reflections, and The Sophy, a historical tragedy of the Turkish court, acted in 1641. He served the royalists durin...
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Anhalt
Anhalt , former state, c.900 sq mi (2,330 sq km), central Germany, surrounded by the former Prussian provinces of Saxony and Brandenburg. Dessau, the capital, and Köthen were the chief cities. Nonmountainous except for the outliers of the lower Harz Mts. in the west, it was drained by the Elbe,...
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Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska , 1891-1915, French sculptor. He was the chief exponent of vorticism in sculpture. Mainly self-taught in England and Germany, Gaudier showed exceptional precocity in his draftsmanship, animal figures, and abstract works such as The Dancer. Returning to France in 1910, he ad...
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Novalis
Novalis , pseud. of Friederich von Hardenberg , 1772-1801, German poet. He studied philosophy under Schiller, Schlegel, and Fichte and was especially influenced by Fichte. He later studied geology. Novalis was one of the great German romantics; his chief work was the novel Heinrich von Ofterding...
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William Page
William Page 1811-85, American historical and portrait painter, b. Albany, N.Y., studied with S. F. B. Morse and at the National Academy of Design. Among his best-known works are Farragut's Triumphal Entry into Mobile Bay (presented to Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, 1871) and Ruth and Naomi (N.Y....
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Francis Ferdinand
Francis Ferdinand 1863-1914, Austrian archduke, heir apparent (after 1889) of his uncle, Emperor Francis Joseph. In 1900 he married a Czech, Sophie Chotek. She was made duchess of Hohenberg, but because she was of minor nobility their children were barred from succession. Laboring to transform the ...
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burlesque
burlesque [Ital.,=mockery], form of entertainment differing from comedy or farce in that it achieves its effects through caricature, ridicule, and distortion. It differs from satire in that it is devoid of any ethical element. The word first came into use in the 16th cent. in an opera of the Italia...
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Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep 1949-, American actress, b. Summit, N.J., as Mary Louise Streep. She attended Yale Drama School and appeared in many Broadway and off-Broadway productions during the early 1970s. Moving to Hollywood, she made her film debut in Julia (1977), and has become one of the most acclaimed fi...
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William Styron
William Styron 1925-2006, American novelist, b. Newport News, Va., grad. Duke, 1947. His fiction is often powerful, deeply felt, poetic, and elegiac. He became well known for his novel The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967; Pulitzer Prize), a fictional recreation of the 1831 slave rebellion in Virg...
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