
Abe Kōbō
(1924–93)Japanese existentialist novelist, playwright, and director. The experience of being raised in Manchuria and repatriated to Japan after the war bred in Abe a sense of rootless individualism, ...

Adolf Jülicher
(1857–1938), NT scholar. He was professor of theology at Marburg from 1889 to 1923. He insisted that the Lord's parables must be understood as real similes, not as allegories, and he worked on the ...

Alain Chartier
(c.1385–c.1435)French poet and prose writer. His most famous poem was La Belle Dame sans mercy (1424), a story of unrequited love in 800 octosyllabic lines; an English translation, falsely ...

Alan Ayckbourn
(1939– ),playwright. His first London success, Relatively Speaking (1967, pub. 1968), was followed by many others, including Absurd Person Singular (1973, pub. 1974); The Norman Conquests (1974, pub. ...

Alberto Moravia
1907–1990)Italian writer, whose novels and short stories display his narrative skill and psychological insight.Moravia was born of Jewish stock in Rome, the setting for most of his stories. He began ...

Aldo Palazzeschi
(1885–1974).Florentine poet and novelist who made distinctively whimsical and ironic contributions to crepuscolarismo and Futurism. His privately published early poetry reworks symbolist and ...

Alexandrian theology
A modern designation for a style of theology associated with the Church of Alexandria. It is particularly used (in contrast to Antiochene theology) of forms of belief which emphasized the Divine ...

A.L.O.E.
(A Lady of England) Pen‐name of Charlotte Maria Tucker (1821–93), writer and Indian missionary, born in Barnet, Middlesex, educated at home. Tucker's many novels were evangelical and didactic but ...

anagogical
[an‐ă‐goj‐ik‐ăl]Revealing a higher spiritual meaning behind the literal meaning of a text. Medieval Christian exegesis of the Bible (see typology) reinterpreted many episodes of Hebrew scripture ...

Anagogical Interpretation
(Gk., anago, ‘I lead up’).Interpretations of scripture (hermeneutics) which point to the meaning of a text in relation to its eternal or heavenly meaning: it is the spiritual sense ...

analogy
In common modern usage the word signifies a resemblance or similarity between objects of discourse. More technically analogy is a linguistic and semantic phenomenon which occurs when one word bears ...

Andrei Serban
(b. 1943), director.The internationally known director, who uses minimalism, nontraditional music, and avant‐garde approaches to classic texts, was born in Bucharest, Romania, where his productions ...

animal
Animal Farm a fable (1945) by George Orwell which consists of a satire on Russian Communism as it developed under Stalin. The animals of the farm, led by the pigs, revolt against the cruel farmer, ...

Anna Maria Ortese
(1914–98).Novelist. Born in Rome, she spent much of her life in Naples, where she played an active part in literary culture, particularly in the years immediately following World War ...

Annaeus Cornutus, Lucius
(1st cent. ad),Stoic philosopher, grammarian, and rhetorician whose pupils included Lucan and Persius (who honoured him in Satirae 5, and whose Satires he reportedly revised after the poet's death) ...

antinomianism
The belief held by various sects, but particularly by radical protestant movements of the 16th and 17th centuries, that certain chosen Christians are by faith or by predestination unable to sin, and ...

Antoine de la Sale
(1385×6–c.1460) French author of didactic and narrative prose.La Sale is best known for Le Petit Jean de Saintré (1456), a novel of courtly manners. His other works are essentially ...

Apostolic Fathers
A title given since the 17th cent. to those Fathers of the age immediately after the NT period whose works survive in whole or part. They are Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Hermas, Polycarp, and Papias, ...

Aurelio Tolentino
(1867–1915)Filipino revolutionary writer. In 1896 Tolentino was an avid member of the Philippine revolutionary movement called the Katipunan, headed by Andres Bonifacio. Throughout the revolution ...

auto sacramental
Spanish term for the religious play in the vernacular which derived from the Latin liturgical drama. Although its development followed in general that of the mystery play, it had by ...