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Wovoka
Wovoka , c.1858-1932, Paiute , prophet of a messianic religion sometimes called the Ghost Dance religion. Also known as Jack Wilson, he was influenced by his father (a mystic) as well as by the Christian family for whom he worked and the Shaker religion. Wovoka claimed that during an eclipse of...
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Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini , 1858-1924, Italian composer of operas. He wrote some of the most popular works in the opera repertory. A descendant of a long line of musicians, he studied piano and organ at his Tuscan birthplace, Lucca, and in 1880 entered the Milan Conservatory. He first gained recognition with ...
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Edmund White
Edmund White (Edmund Valentine White 3d), 1940-, American writer, b. Cincinnati, grad. Univ. of Michigan (B.A., 1962). White is one of the best known—and probably the finest stylist—of the openly gay writers who came to public attention in the 1970s and 80s. His first novel, Forgetting...
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idol
idol an object, frequently an image, which is worshiped as a deity. Idols are usually found in human or animal form and may be treated as though alive; they are fed, bathed, anointed, crowned, and sometimes even provided with a consort. Christians and Jews extend the term to include any deity other...
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Madoc
Madoc or Madog (Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd) , fl. 1170?, quasi-historical Welsh prince. According to Welsh legend, Madoc, said to be a son of Owain Gwynedd, discovered America 300 years before Columbus. Witnesses' accounts of finding supposedly Welsh-speaking Native Americans have served to keep a...
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Theocritus
Theocritus , fl. c.270 BC, Hellenistic Greek poet, b. Syracuse. The history of the pastoral begins with him, and in him the form seems to have reached its height. His poetic style is finished and at times artificial, but the bucolic characters in his idyls seem alive. Theocritus has been widely im...
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Thetis
Thetis , in Greek mythology, a nereid, mother of Achilles. She was loved by both Zeus and Poseidon, but because of a prophecy that her son would be greater than his father, the gods gave her in marriage to a mortal, Peleus. According to one legend, Thetis burned alive her first six sons and sent the...
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vestal
vestal , in Roman religion, priestess of Vesta. The vestals were first two, then four, then six in number. While still little girls, they were chosen from prominent Roman families to serve for 30 (originally 5) years, during which time they could not marry. Their duties included the preparation of s...
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Antigone
Antigone , in Greek mythology, daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta. In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, she and her sister Ismene follow their father into exile at Colonus. When her brothers Eteocles and Polynices killed each other in the war of the Seven against Thebes , Creon, King of Thebes, forbade...
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Philoctetes
Philoctetes , in Greek mythology, son of Poias. He acquired, by gift, the bow and arrow of Hercules by lighting the pyre on which the hero was consumed alive. On his way to the Trojan War, Philoctetes was bitten by a snake. Because the smell of his wound and his cries made him offensive, his compani...
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