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Leszczyński family (Polish family)
Leszno was founded in the 15th century by the prominent Leszczyński family, whose tombs are in the parish church. In the 16th century a band of Protestant Moravian Brothers, expelled from Bohemia, made Leszno a centre of the Reformation. The educator John Amos Comenius lived and taught there. During the 17th and 18th centuries it prospered as a textile and academic centre. It passed to......
Leszczyński, Stanisław (king of Poland)
king of Poland (1704–09, 1733) during a period of great problems and turmoil. He was a victim of foreign attempts to dominate the country....
Leszetycki, Teodor (Polish pianist)
Polish pianist and teacher who, with Franz Liszt, was the most influential teacher of piano of his time....
Leszno (Poland)
city, Wielkopolskie województwo (province), west-central Poland. It is a rail junction and an agricultural and manufacturing centre....
let (tennis)
...the ball diagonally across the net and into the opponent’s right-hand service court. Should the ball on service strike the top of the net before falling in the correct service court, it is a “let” and is replayed. The server is allowed one miss, or “fault,” either into the net or outside the opponent’s service court. Failure to deliver a correct service...
LET (physics)
The stopping power of a medium toward a charged particle refers to the energy loss of the particle per unit path length in the medium. It is specified by the differential -dE/dx, in which -dE represents the energy loss and dx represents the increment of path length. What is of interest to the radiation scientist is the spatial distribution......
LeT (militant organization)
...Square in New York City, had received bomb-making training in a militant camp in North Waziristan. Also in May, Indian officials expressed disappointment after Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which was implicated in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, was released by a Lahore court owing to insufficient evidence. In a December visit to Islamabad, U.S. Adm.......
Let England Shake (album by Harvey)
...Cracks in the Canvas, Harvey once again demonstrated that her voice was an instrument capable of conveying dramatic emotional range. Harvey later surfaced with Let England Shake (2011), a rollicking folk-influenced album that alluded to the battles of World War I as part of a complex portrait of her relationship to her homeland. In 2011 ......
Let History Judge (work by Medvedev)
As a historian, Medvedev examined Soviet politics and its leading personalities from the period of the Russian Revolution to the 1960s. Perhaps his most important book, Let History Judge (1971), is a comprehensive historical study of Stalinism, with particular attention paid to that movement’s origins and consequences. His books Khrushchev: The Years in Power (1976; coauthored...
Let It Be (song by the Beatles)
...on her bicycle to deliver babies. Her death from breast cancer in October 1956, when McCartney was age 14, had a profound effect on his life and was the inspiration for his ballad Let It Be (1970). His younger brother, Michael, later changed his name to Mike McGear and had a number of hits in the satirical rock group Scaffold. Like fellow Beatles George Harrison and......
Let It Be (album by the Beatles)
...in 1969 to work on the solo records of John Lennon and George Harrison, at whose behest (and to Paul McCartney’s lasting displeasure) he completed the postproduction of Let It Be, the Beatles’ final album. Later collaborations with Leonard Cohen and the Ramones were no more successful than his attempts to reestablish his own label. His time had gone....
Let It Be (documentary by Lindsay-Hogg [1970])
...Freddie Young for Ryan’s DaughterArt Direction: Urie McCleary and Gil Parrondo for PattonOriginal Score: Francis Lai for Love StoryOriginal Song Score: The Beatles for Let It BeSong Original for the Picture: “For All We Know” from Lovers and Other Strangers; music by Fred Karlin, lyrics by James Griffin [aka Arthur James] and Robb Royer [a...
Let It Bleed (album by the Rolling Stones)
The period between “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and the double album Exile on Main Street (1972) remains their creative and iconic peak. Including the studio albums Let It Bleed (1969) and Sticky Fingers (1971) plus the in-concert Get Yer Ya-Yas Out! (1970), it gave them the repertoire and image that still defines them an...
Let It Ride (card game)
Let it ride is a five-card stud poker game. There is no dealer’s hand in this house-banked game. Each player lays three equal bets on the table before receiving three cards facedown. Then each player may let his first bet stay on the table, or he may withdraw it. A community card is then dealt faceup, and each player decides whether to withdraw his second bet or “let it ride.”...
Let Me Down Easy (one-woman play by Smith)
In 2008 she premiered a one-woman play, Let Me Down Easy, which explored the resiliency and vulnerability of the human body. Smith portrayed more than 20 characters, who spoke out about current events such as genocide in Rwanda, steroid use among athletes, AIDS in Africa, and the U.S. health care system....
Let Me Off Uptown (recording by Krupa)
...some of the band’s best-known recordings, including Boogie Blues, Just a Little Bit South of North Carolina, and, especially, Let Me Off Uptown, the Krupa band’s biggest hit....
“Let Me Praise the Lord of Wisdom” (Mesopotamian literature)
in ancient Mesopotamian religious literature, a philosophical composition concerned with a man who, seemingly forsaken by the gods, speculates on the changeability of men and fate. The composition, also called the “Poem of the Righteous Sufferer” or the “Babylonian Job,” has been likened to the biblical Book of Job....
Let There Be Rock (album by AC/DC)
...by the mid-1970s. After relocating to London in 1976 and solidifying their lineup (with Scott as vocalist, Rudd on drums, Williams on bass, and the Youngs), AC/DC found success in Britain with Let There Be Rock (1977) and internationally with Highway to Hell (1979). AC/DC’s rise was hampered by Scott’s alcohol-related death in February 1980, but replacement Johnson...
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (work by Agee and Evans)
nonfiction work on the daily lives of Depression-era tenant farmers, with text by American author James Agee and black-and-white portraits by American documentary photographer Walker Evans, published in 1941....
let-up (baseball pitch)
...as in on the batter or away from him. Fastball pitchers of note include Walter Johnson, Satchel Paige, Bob Feller, Nolan Ryan, and Roger Clemens. An important pitch related to the fastball is the change-up, which is a deliberately slower pitch that can sneak past a batter expecting a fastball....
Letchworth (England, United Kingdom)
town (“parish”), North Hertfordshire district, administrative and historic county of Hertfordshire, England, located north of London. Britain’s first planned “garden city,” much copied elsewhere, it was founded in 1903 by Sir Ebenezer Howard...
Leterme, Yves (prime minister of Belgium)
Area: 30,528 sq km (11,787 sq mi) | Population (2010 est.): 10,868,000 | Capital: Brussels | Head of state: King Albert II | Head of government: Prime Minister Yves Leterme (acting from April 26) | ...
lethal dose 50 (pharmacology)
...ED50 represents the dose that causes 50 percent of a sample population to respond. Similar measurements can be used as a rough estimate of drug toxicity, the result being expressed as the median lethal dose (LD50), which is defined as the dose causing mortality in 50 percent of a group of animals....
lethal injection (execution method)
method of executing condemned prisoners through the administration of chemicals that induce death....
Lethbridge (Alberta, Canada)
city, southern Alberta, Canada, lying on the Oldman River near its junction with the St. Mary River, 135 miles (217 km) south-southeast of Calgary....
Lethe (Greek mythology)
(Greek: “Oblivion”), in Greek mythology, daughter of Eris (Strife) and the personification of oblivion. Lethe is also the name of a river or plain in the infernal regions....
Lethocerus (insect)
any wide and flat-bodied aquatic insect of the family Belostomatidae (order Heteroptera). This family, although containing only about 100 species, includes the largest bugs in the order: sometimes exceeding 10 cm (4 inches) in the South American species Lethocerus grandis and ranging between 2 and 5 cm in northern climates. These insects are usually seen suspended in a quiet pond or lake, ...
Lethrinidae (fish family)
...fin and joined to it; anal fin short-based; caudal fin usually truncate. About 105 species; marine and brackish water in all warm seas.Families Nemipteridae and Lethrinidae (breams)Resemble Lutjanidae; some with wider preorbital area under which upper jaw slips; others (Nemipteridae) with molar te...
Lethrinus variegatus (fish)
...fin and joined to it; anal fin short-based; caudal fin usually truncate. About 105 species; marine and brackish water in all warm seas.Families Nemipteridae and Lethrinidae (breams)Resemble Lutjanidae; some with wider preorbital area under which upper jaw slips; others (Nemipteridae) with molar te...
Leticia (Colombia)
town, southeastern Colombia, lying on the Amazon River at the point where the borders of Colombia, Brazil, and Peru meet....
Létinois, Lucien (French author)
In 1880 Verlaine made an unsuccessful essay at farming with his favourite pupil, Lucien Létinois, and the boy’s parents. Lucien’s death in April 1883, as well as that of the poet’s mother (to whom he was tenderly attached) in January 1886, and the failure of all attempts at reconciliation with his wife broke down whatever will to “respectability” remained,...
Letlama (African chief)
founder and first paramount chief of the Sotho (Basuto, Basotho) nation. One of the most successful Southern African leaders of the 19th century, Moshoeshoe combined aggressive military counteraction and adroit diplomacy against colonial invasions. He created a large African state in the face of attacks by the Boers...
Leto (mythology)
in classical mythology, a Titan, the daughter of Coeus and Phoebe, and mother of the god Apollo and the goddess Artemis. The chief places of her legend were Delos and Delphi. Leto, pregnant by Zeus, sought a place of refuge to be delivered. She finally reached the barren isle of Delos, which, according to some, was a wande...
Leto, Giulio Pomponio (Italian humanist)
Italian Humanist and founder of the Academia Romana, a semisecret society devoted to archaeological and antiquarian interests and the celebration of ancient Roman rites....
Letohrádek (building, Prague, Czech Republic)
...in the Gothic mode, and most secular architecture was local in style with only a slight influence from the Italianate Renaissance. A few minor royal commissions were more Classical, such as the Letohrádek (1538–63), or garden belvedere (summerhouse), at Prague for Queen Anne, wife of Ferdinand I, with its delicate exterior arcade. The nearby tennis court (1565–68),......
letrozole (drug)
anticancer drug used to inhibit the synthesis of estrogen in postmenopausal women who have breast cancers that are dependent on the growth-promoting actions of the hormone. Letrozole is marketed as Femara and is manufactured by Swiss drug company Novartis AG....
Let’s Dance (American radio program)
...Stomp, and Blue Moon among them—began to attract notice at about the time his band was hired for a spot on the national radio program Let’s Dance. This three-hour weekly program devoted an hour apiece to bands of varying styles, with Goodman’s band appearing last. The band’s first national tour, in 193...
Let’s Dance (album by Bowie)
In the 1980s, despite the impressive artistic resolve of Scary Monsters (1980) and the equally impressive commercial calculation of Let’s Dance (1983), which produced three American Top 20 hits, Bowie’s work grew steadily more trivial. In tandem with an acting career that, since his arresting debut in Nicolas Roeg’s ....
Let’s Get Lost (recording by Baker)
...a vocalist; his vibratoless, somewhat feminine-sounding tenor voice was in the “cool school” of singers such as Mel Tormé and June Christy. His 1954 recording of Let’s Get Lost, a romantic ballad that took on new connotations when sung by the addict Baker, became the song most associated with him....
Let’s Roll (song by Young)
In 2001 Young responded to the September 11 attacks with Let’s Roll, a song honouring passengers’ efforts to foil the hijacking of one of the planes (Flight 93) used in the attack. Young’s politics continued to be as mercurial as his music. In the mid-1980s he had expressed admiration for conservative U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan. In 2006 Young’s ...
Let’s Stay Together (song by Green)
...it was Tired of Being Alone (1971), written by Green, that suggested his extraordinary potential. It sold more than a million copies, preparing the way for Let’s Stay Together, the title track from Green’s first gold album....
Letsie III (king of Lesotho)
Area: 30,355 sq km (11,720 sq mi) | Population (2010 est.): 1,920,000 | Capital: Maseru | Head of state: King Letsie III | Head of government: Prime Minister Bethuel Pakalitha Mosisili | ...
Lett (people)
...the Baltic Sea. (The name Balt, coined in the 19th century, is derived from the sea; Aestii was the name given these peoples by the Roman historian Tacitus.) In addition to the Lithuanians and the Latvians (Letts), several groups now extinct were included: the Yotvingians (Jatvians, or Jatvingians; assimilated among the Lithuanians and Slavs in the 16th–17th century); the Prussians......
Letten und ihre Latwija, Die (work by Cakste)
...Refugees Committee, which, in addition to providing relief for war refugees, worked for Latvian autonomy. In 1916 he went to Stockholm to promote the cause of Latvian independence and there wrote Die Letten und ihre Latwija (1917; “The Letts and Their Latvia”). Elected chairman of the Latvian People’s Council in 1918, he was later the head of the delegation sent to L...
letter (alphabet)
A code is simply an unvarying rule for replacing a piece of information (e.g., letter, word, or phrase) with another object, but not necessarily of the same sort; Morse code, which replaces alphanumeric characters with patterns of dots and dashes, is a familiar example. Probably the most widely known code in use today is the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII). Employed......
letter (mail)
The raw material of the postal services, always a single object that demands individual treatment, is something sent by one person (or entity) to another who may be anywhere in the world. Letters and parcels in all shapes and sizes are subject only to the limits of weight and dimension prescribed by postal legislation. Yet, if postal services are to be efficient and economical, these items must......
letter (literature)
The idea of comparing Romans with foreigners was taken up by Cornelius Nepos, a friend of Cicero and Catullus. Of his De viris illustribus all that survive are 24 hack pieces about worthies long dead and one of real merit about his friend Atticus. The very fact that Atticus and Tiro decided to publish nearly 1,000 of Cicero’s letters is evidence of public interest in people. Admirati...
“Letter, A” (work by Hofmannsthal)
...constantly recurring in his later works. After the turn of the century, however, Hofmannsthal renounced purely lyrical forms in his essay “Ein Brief” (also called “Chandos Brief,” 1902). This essay was more than the revelation of a personal predicament; it has come to be recognized as symptomatic of the crisis that undermined the esthetic Symbolist......
letter box
...regardless of distance was adopted in 1863 (after an interim period with two rates since 1845), and postage stamps were introduced in 1847. Free collection services came with the provision of street letter boxes in 1858. A free delivery service was established in 1863, covering 49 cities and employing 440 letter carriers. By 1900 the service was provided at 796 offices by 15,322 carriers. The.....
Letter Concerning Enthusiasm (work by Shaftesbury)
The Deists were particularly vehement against any manifestation of religious fanaticism and enthusiasm. In this respect Shaftesbury’s Letter Concerning Enthusiasm (1708) was probably the crucial document in propagating their ideas. Revolted by the Puritan fanatics of the previous century and by the wild hysteria of a group of French exiles prophesying in London in 1707, Shaftesbury.....
Letter Concerning Toleration, A (work by Locke)
Locke remained in Holland for more than five years (1683–89). While there he made new and important friends and associated with other exiles from England. He also wrote his first Letter on Toleration, published anonymously in Latin in 1689, and completed An Essay Concerning Human Understanding....
Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom (film by Kawase)
...and the CICAE (International Confederation of Art Cinemas) Prize at the Locarno (Switz.) International Film Festival. She returned to documentary filmmaking with Tsuioku no dansu (2003; Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom), which chronicled the final days in the life of one of Kawase’s mentors, Kazuo Nishii, a photographer and film critic suffering from cancer. Her motion.....
Letter from America (radio program)
...citizen in 1941. From the late 1930s, Cooke reported and commented on American affairs for BBC radio and several major British newspapers. His weekly 15-minute program, Letter from America, broadcast from 1946 to 2004, was one of the longest-running series on radio. The texts of many broadcasts were collected in One Man’s America......
Letter from Artemizia in the Town, to Chloë in the Country, A (work by Rochester)
...sexual epicure were but fending off fear of oblivion. More lightly, Rochester experimented ingeniously with various forms of verse satire on contemporary society. The most brilliant of these, A Letter from Artemisia in the Town, to Chloë in the Country (written about 1675), combines a shrewd ear for currently fashionable idioms with a Chinese box structure that masks the......
Letter from Birmingham Jail (work by King)
In Birmingham, Alabama, in the spring of 1963, King’s campaign to end segregation at lunch counters and in hiring practices drew nationwide attention when police turned dogs and fire hoses on the demonstrators. King was jailed along with large numbers of his supporters, including hundreds of schoolchildren. His supporters did not, however, include all the black clergy of Birmingham, and he ...
Letter from Italy, A (work by Addison)
...the year 1701 in leisurely travel in Italy, during which he wrote the prose Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (1705; rev. ed. 1718) and the poetic epistle A Letter from Italy (1704). From Italy Addison crossed into Switzerland, where, in Geneva, he learned in March 1702 of the death of William III and the consequent loss of power of his two......
Letter from Jamaica, The (work by Bolívar)
In exile, Bolívar wrote the greatest document of his career: La Carta de Jamaica (“The Letter from Jamaica”), in which he outlined a grandiose panorama from Chile and Argentina to Mexico. “The bonds,” wrote Bolívar, “that united us to Spain have been severed.” He proposed constitutional republics throughout Hispanic America, and...
Letter from Sydney, A (work by Wakefield)
...of ordinary citizens (not convicts) in the colonies would best solve the problems of poverty and crime caused by the sharp increase in the British population. In his first important book, A Letter from Sydney . . . (published in 1829 while he was still in prison), which was thought by many to have come from Australia, he proposed the sale of crown lands there in small units at a......
letter mail
...accounts in 1947. A decline to less than 1,000,000 depositors caused the service to be discontinued in 1966. Mail was formally divided into three classes in 1863, and a fourth was added in 1879. First-class, or letter, mail (called letter post in the United Kingdom) is the basis of the postal service monopoly and, as the class of mail most commonly used by the public, has generally had a......
letter of credence (diplomacy)
...country does not object, formal application for agrément, or consent, is made by the envoy being replaced. Then the new ambassador is sent forth with a letter of credence addressed by his head of state to the head of the host state to introduce the ambassador as his or her representative. In most major capitals a copy of credentials is now first......
Letter of Lentulus (apocryphal writing)
...iconic liturgy dominate the manuals of the Orthodox icon painters. The model of the Christ figure for icon painters was found in an apocryphal writing of the early church—the Letter of Lentulus, supposedly written by a certain Lentulus, who was named consul in the 12th year of the emperor Tiberius. As the superior of Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judaea, he b...
Letter of Wholesome Counsel (work by Knox)
...for the defense of Protestantism in case that should prove necessary. A peremptory summons from his congregation called him back to Geneva; but he left to the faithful in Scotland an important Letter of Wholesome Counsel (1556) enjoining not only private family worship but also weekly meetings of believers for corporate Bible study and discussion. From these weekly meetings,......
Letter on Humanism (work by Heidegger)
...an antiquated concept that merited consignment to history’s dustbin. An important precedent for the debate that began in the early 1960s had been set by Heidegger’s 1947 Letter on Humanism, which the German philosopher intended as a rejoinder to French existential humanism as represented by Sartre. Whereas Sartre stressed the dignity of human existence as...
letter post
...accounts in 1947. A decline to less than 1,000,000 depositors caused the service to be discontinued in 1966. Mail was formally divided into three classes in 1863, and a fourth was added in 1879. First-class, or letter, mail (called letter post in the United Kingdom) is the basis of the postal service monopoly and, as the class of mail most commonly used by the public, has generally had a......
Letter, The (recording by the Box Tops)
...eventually coming to the attention of American Sound Studios executive Chips Moman and songwriter Dan Penn. Penn produced the group—now renamed the Box Tops—on the song The Letter. The Letter was a surprise hit, spending four weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1967. It later resurfaced as...
Letter to a Hostage (work by Saint-Exupéry)
...is a personal reminiscence of a reconnaissance sortie in May 1940 accomplished in a spirit of sacrifice against desperate odds. While in America he wrote Lettre à un otage (1943; Letter to a Hostage, 1950), a call to unity among Frenchmen, and Le Petit Prince (1943; The Little Prince, 1943), a child’s fable for adults, with a gentle and grave reminder t...
Letter to a King (work by Guáman Poma de Ayala)
native Peruvian author and illustrator of El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1612–15; “The First New Chronicle and Good Government”)....
Letter to a Noble Lord (work by Burke)
...prose in the English language. John Milton’s Areopagitica (1644) and his other political pamphlets are monuments of political prose that survive to this day as classics. Edmund Burke’s Letter to a Noble Lord (1796) was praised a century and a half after its composition as the greatest piece of invective in the English language. William Godwin’s Political Ju...
Letter to American Teachers of History (essay by Adams)
...of state from 1898 to 1905. His last book, The Life of George Cabot Lodge, was published in 1911. In two speculative essays, “Rule of Phase Applied to History” (1909) and Letter to American Teachers of History (1910), Adams calculated the demise of the world. Basing his theory on a scientific law, the dissipation of energy, he described civilization as......
Letter to Coroticus (work by Saint Patrick)
...to Ireland and probably responsible in part for the Christianization of the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. He is known only from two short works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Letter to Coroticus, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish Christians....
Letter to His Father (work by Kafka)
...race of giants and was an awesome, admirable, but repulsive tyrant. In Kafka’s most important attempt at autobiography, Brief an den Vater (written 1919; Letter to Father), a letter that never reached the addressee, Kafka attributed his failure to live—to cut loose from parental ties and establish himself in marriage and......
Letter to Maria Gisborne (poem by Shelley)
After moving to Pisa in 1820, Shelley was stung by hostile reviews into expressing his hopes more guardedly. His “Letter to Maria Gisborne” in heroic couplets and “The Witch of Atlas” in ottava rima (both 1820; published 1824) combine the mythopoeic mode of Prometheus Unbound with the urbane self-irony that had emerged in Peter Bell the Third, showing......
Letter to Monsieur d’Alembert on the Theatre (essay by Rousseau)
...forced to interrupt publication, and Rousseau attacked the rational philosophy of the Philosophes in general in a polemical treatise on the question of the morality of theatrical performances, Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles (1758). Rousseau’s view that drama might well be abolished marked a final break between the two writers....
Letter to Sister Benedicta (novel by Tremain)
...the reminiscences of an elderly butler who lives alone in the house he has inherited from his former employers, established Tremain’s reputation as a chronicler of despair and loneliness. In Letter to Sister Benedicta (1978), a middle-aged woman whose family life is unbearable writes to her former teacher, a nun, looking for solace. The Cupboard (1981) explores the......
Letter to the Free Society of Traders, A (work by Penn)
Before his return, he published A Letter to the Free Society of Traders (1683), which contained his fullest description of Pennsylvania and included a valuable account of the Lenni Lenape based on firsthand observation. With the accession of his friend the duke of York as James II in 1685, Penn found himself in a position of great influence at court, whereby he was......
Letter to the World (ballet)
...borne him children. The work treats Jocasta rather than Oedipus as the tragic victim, and shows her reliving the events of her life and seeking justification for her actions. In Letter to the World (1940), a work about Emily Dickinson, several characters are used to portray different aspects of the poet’s personality....
Letter to Three Wives, A (film by Mankiewicz [1949])
...
Letter to Voetius (work by Descartes)
...in 1639, involved Descartes in a fierce controversy with the Calvinist theologian Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676) that continued for the rest of Descartes’s life. In his Letter to Voetius of 1648, Descartes made a plea for religious tolerance and the rights of man. Claiming to write not only for Christians but also for Turks—meaning Muslims, libertine...
Letter to...the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the Affairs of America, A (work by Burke)
...statements on this issue are two parliamentary speeches, “On American Taxation” (1774) and “On Moving His Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies” (1775), and “A Letter to…the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the Affairs of America” (1777). British policy, he argued, had been both imprudent and inconsistent, but above all legalistic and intransigen...
lettera antica (calligraphy)
in calligraphy, script based upon the clear, orderly Carolingian writing that Italian humanists mistook for the ancient Roman script used at the time of Cicero (1st century bc). They used the term roman to distinguish this supposedly classical style from black-letter and national hands. It was upon the model of antica, or roman, scripts t...
Lettera semiseria di Grisostomo al suo figliuolo (work by Berchet)
...in Milan, where a Romantic periodical, Il Conciliatore (1818–19; “The Peacemaker”), was published. Giovanni Berchet (patriotic poet whose Lettera semiseria di Grisostomo al suo figliuolo [1816; “Half-Serious Letter from Grisostomo to His Son”] is an important manifesto of Italian popular romanticism), Silvio Pellico,...
Letteraria Italiana, Accademia (Italian literary academy)
Italian literary academy founded in Rome in 1690 to combat Marinism, the dominant Italian poetic style of the 17th century. The Arcadians sought a more natural, simple poetic style based on the classics and particularly on Greek and Roman pastoral poetry....
Letteratura (Italian review)
...reached the height of his storytelling powers. Meanwhile, the Florentine literary reviews Solaria, Frontespizio, and Letteratura, while having to tread carefully with the authorities, provided an outlet for new talent. Carlo Emilio Gadda had his first narrative work (La Madonna dei filosofi......
“letteratura americana e altri saggi, La” (work by Pavese)
...of his first translations was of Moby Dick); and the Irish novelist James Joyce. He also published criticism, posthumously collected in La letteratura americana e altri saggi (1951; American Literature, Essays and Opinions, 1970). His work probably did more to foster the reading and appreciation of U.S. writers in Italy than that of any other single man....
Lettere (work by Svevo)
...(1960), a collection of dramatic work; and Further Confessions of Zeno (1969), an English translation of his incomplete novel. Svevo’s correspondence with Montale was published as Lettere (1966). Svevo ultimately has been recognized as one of the most important figures in modern Italian literary history....
lettere a Maria, Le (work by Aleardi)
Brought up in Verona, then controlled by Austria, he studied law at the University of Padua. His love lyrics, Le lettere a Maria (1846; “The Letters to Maria”), were eagerly read; but back in Verona and prevented by the Austrian government from practicing law, he wrote a series of bitterly anti-Austrian poems, notably Le città italiane marinare e commercianti......
“lettere da Capri, Le” (work by Soldati)
...noia (1960; “The Tedium”; Eng. trans. Empty Canvas) stand out as particular achievements. Soldati, in works such as Le lettere da Capri (1953; The Capri Letters) and Le due città (1964; “The Two Cities”)—and in a later novel, L’incendio (1981; “The Fire”),...
“Lettere dal carcere” (work by Gramsci)
...(1930). Antonio Gramsci, an unwilling “guest” of the regime, gave testimony to the triumph of spirit over oppression in Lettere dal carcere (1947; Letters from Prison)....
Lettere di politica e letteratura edite ed inedite (work by Balbo)
...should be compensated with territory in the Balkans; that the interests of the papacy should be safeguarded; and that a confederation might be the best political organization for Italy. In Lettere di politica e letteratura edite ed inedite (1847), Balbo called for a specifically moderate Italian party....
Lettere familiare (work by Caro)
Caro’s most outstanding works are his free and graceful Lettere familiare (pub. 1572–74; “Familiar Letters”) and a smooth translation of Virgil’s Aeneid (1581). He also wrote one of the most original comedies of his time, Straccioni (completed 1544), and a version of Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe called Amori pastorali di Dafni e...
lettered olive (snail)
Olives burrow in sandy bottoms. Common in southeastern American waters is the lettered olive (Oliva sayana), about 6 cm (2.5 inches) long. Abundant in the Indo-Pacific region is the 8-centimetre (3-inch) orange-mouthed olive (O. sericea)....
lettering
Lettering is selected by the map editor in styles and sizes appropriate to the respective features and the relative importance of each. For topographic maps and most others that follow conventional practice, four basic styles of lettering are used in the Western world. The Roman style is generally used for place-names, political divisions, titles, and related nomenclature. Italic is used for......
Letteris, Meir (Polish-Jewish author)
...by Joseph Perl of the Epistolae obscurorum virorum (1515; “Letters of Obscure Men”) of Crotus Rubianus and the essays of Isaac Erter were classics of the genre. One poet, Meir Letteris, and one dramatist, Naḥman Isaac Fischman, wrote biblical plays....
Letterman, David (American talk-show host)
American late-night talk-show personality, producer, and comedian, best known as the host of the long-running Late Show with David Letterman....
letterpress printing
in commercial printing, process by which many copies of an image are produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. Letterpress is the oldest of the traditional printing techniques and remained the only important one from the time of Gutenberg, about 1450, until the development of lithography late in the 18th century and, especially...
Letters (work by Barth)
...parodied conventional forms—the historical novel in The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), Greek and Christian myths in Giles Goat-Boy (1966), and the epistolary novel in LETTERS (1979). Similarly, Donald Barthelme mocked the fairy tale in Snow White (1967) and Freudian fiction in The Dead Father (1975). Barthelme was most successful....
Letters (works by Plato)
...Republic but receive respectful mention in the Philebus). It is thought that his three trips to Syracuse in Sicily (many of the Letters concern these, though their authenticity is controversial) led to a deep personal attachment to Dion (408–354 bce), brother-in-law of Dionysius the Elder (430–367 ...
Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians (work by Catlin)
...again. The oldest extant accounts of Madog are in Richard Hakluyt’s Voyages (1582) and David Powel’s The Historie of Cambria (1584). Hakluyt believed Madog had landed in Florida. In Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians (1841), George Catlin surmised that Madog’s expedition had reached the upper Missouri ...
Letters and Papers from Prison (work by Bonhoeffer)
Bonhoeffer’s prison writings, published in 1951 (Widerstand und Ergebung; Letters and Papers from Prison, 1953, enlarged ed., 1997), are of interest both for their theological themes, especially as developed in the letters to his friend and later editor and biographer, Eberhard Bethge, and for their remarkable reflection on cultural and spiritual life. Reviewing th...
Letters and Prose Writings, The (work by Cowper)
...English, and some of his hymns, such as “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” and “Oh! For a Closer Walk with God,” have become part of the folk heritage of Protestant England. The Letters and Prose Writings, in two volumes, edited by James King and Charles Ryskamp, was published in 1979–80....