Stream of consciousness, in literature, technique that records the multifarious thoughts and feelings of a character without regard to logical argument or narrative sequence. The writer attemp...

Howe, Irving, 1920–93, American literary and social critic, b. New York City. From his early days as a Trotskyist to his later (and lifelong) position as a democratic socialist, Howe criticize...

Oxford. 1 Town (1990 pop. 12,588), Worcester co., S Mass.; settled 1687 by French Protestants, inc. 1693. It is chiefly residential, with some light manufacturing. Clara Barton was born in the...

Simon, Claude Eugène Henri, 1913–2005, French novelist. He was born in Antananarivo, Madagascar, and studied at Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge. He fought in World War II both as a soldier and la...

Symbolists, in literature, a school originating in France toward the end of the 19th cent. in reaction to the naturalism and realism of the period. Designed to convey impressions by suggestion...

Menninger, Karl Augustus, 1893–1990, and William Claire Menninger, 1899–1966, American psychiatrists, brothers, b. Topeka, Kans. The Menninger Clinic, conceived with the idea of collecting man...

Webb, Philip Speakman, 1831–1915, English architect. His influence, together with that of R. N. Shaw and W. E. Nesfield, established after the mid-19th cent. a revival of residential architect...

South, the, region of the United States embracing the southeastern and south-central parts of the country. Traditionally, all states S of the Mason-Dixon Line and the Ohio River (except West V...

Novel, in modern literary usage, a sustained work of prose fiction a volume or more in length. It is distinguished from the short story and the fictional sketch, which are necessarily brief. A...

American literature, literature in English produced in what is now the United States of America. American writing began with the work of English adventurers and colonists in the New World chie...