Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Shelley was the heir to rich estates acquired by his grandfather, Bysshe (pronounced “Bish”) Shelley.

Essex

Administrative, geographic, and historic county of eastern England, extending along the North Sea coastline between the Thames and Stour estuaries. The administrative county covers an area within the larger geographic county, which in turn covers a part of the original historic county of Essex. The administrative county comprises 12 districts: Basildon, Braintree

Alecsandri, Vasile

His lyrical poems,

Akh

In Egyptian religion, the spirit of a deceased person and, with the ka and ba (qq.v.), a principal aspect of the soul. By enabling the soul to assume temporarily any form it desired, for the purpose of revisiting the earth or for its own enjoyment, the akh characterized the soul of a deceased person as an effective entity in the next world. The akh-soul was generally represented

Sung Dynasty

The Sung dynasty was founded when Chao K'uang-yin, the military inspector general of the Chou dynasty, last of the Five Dynasties, usurped control of the empire in a coup. Thereafter, he used his mastery of diplomatic maneuvering to persuade powerful potential

Alaungpaya

Of humble origins, Alaungpaya was a village headman from the

Ear, Human, Tuning-fork tests

In the Rinne test the sounding tuning fork is placed on the mastoid process, and the person

Blondin

When he was five years old he was sent to the École de Gymnase at Lyon, and after six months' training as an acrobat he made his first public appearance as “the Little

Abbas, Mahmoud

After months of intense international pressure, Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, was installed as Palestinian prime minister on April 30, 2003. As a condition for pursuing their road map to peace, the quartet (U.S., European Union, Russia, and UN) had insisted on the appointment of a prime minister with wide powers in a move to circumvent Palestinian Pres. Yasir Arafat, who

Literature

The predominant theme of 2001 was literature that chronicled the ordeals of political prisoners in a number of Arab countries. Works defined as “prison literature” were authored by freed political prisoners motivated to speak out by the relative freedom in the past two years in their countries. Writing in French,

Furniture, Italy

Though it was in Italian architecture, painting, and sculpture that the Baroque style was evolved, Italy was not the first to apply this style to furniture. But by the mid-17th century Italy was producing flamboyantly carved, painted, and gilded furniture, decorated with such typical motifs as cupids, acanthus, shells, and boldly drawn scrolls, and was further enriching

Biblical Literature, Legislation

The book of Exodus includes not only the narrative and celebration of God's redemptive action in the Exodus and wanderings and his revealing presence at Mt. Sinai but also a corpus of legislation, both civil and religious, that is ascribed to God and this revelation event. The Covenant Code, or Book of the Covenant, presented in chapters 20–23, immediately following the Decalogue