After his wife’s death in 1853, he wrote mainly essays on literature, history, and politics. A highly influ¬ ential man of letters in his day, he taught at Harvard, edited The Atlan¬ tic Monthly and The North American Review, and served as minister to Spain and ambassador to Britain.
Lowell, Percival (b. March 13, 1855, Boston, Mass., U.S.—d. Nov. 12, 1916, Flagstaff, Ariz.) U.S. astronomer. He was born into a distin¬ guished Boston family. In the 1890s he built a private observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., to study Mars. He championed the now-abandoned theory that intelligent inhabitants of a dying Mars had constructed a planetwide system of irrigation. He thought that the so-called canals of Mars (see Mars, canals of) were bands of cultivated vegetation dependent on this irrigation. Lowell’s theory, long vigorously opposed, was finally put to rest by images received from the U.S. Mariner spacecraft. His prediction of a planet beyond Neptune was vindicated when Pluto was discovered in 1930.
Lowell, Robert orig. Robert Traill Spence Lowell, Jr. (b. March 1, 1917, Boston, Mass., U.S.—d. Sept. 12, 1977, New York, N.Y.) U.S. poet. Lowell was a descendant of a distinguished family that included James Russell Lowell and Amy Lowell. Though he turned away from his Puritan heritage, it forms the subject of much of his poetry. His first major work, Lord Weary’s Castle (1946, Pulitzer Prize), contains “The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket.” Life Studies (1959) contains an autobiographi¬ cal essay and 15 complex, confessional poems largely based on his fam¬ ily history and personal life, which included time in mental institutions. His activities in liberal causes in the 1960s influenced his next three vol¬ umes, including For the Union Dead (1964). His later collections include The Dolphin (1973, Pulitzer Prize).
Lower Canada See Canada East
Lovebirds (Agapornis personata).
TONI ANGERMAYER
James Russell Lowell.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
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1144 I Lowry ► Luba-Lunda states
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Lowry \'lau-re\, (Clarence) Malcolm (b. July 28, 1909, Birkhead, Cheshire, Eng.—d. June 27, 1957, Ripe, Sussex) British novelist, short- story writer, and poet. In his youth Lowry rebelled against his conven¬ tional upbringing and shipped to China as a cabin boy; he later lived in France, the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Italy. His reputation rests on the novel Under the Volcano (1947), about the last desperate day of a dispir¬ ited alcoholic and former British consul in Mexico. Its juxtaposition of images of social decay and self-destructiveness was seen as a symbolic vision of Europe on the verge of World War II. Though critically praised, it received popular recognition only after Lowry’s death at age 47, prob¬ ably the result of alcoholism.
Loy, Myrna orig. Myrna Williams (b. Aug. 2, 1905, Radersburg, Mont., U.S.—d. Dec. 14, 1993, New York, N.Y.) U.S. film actress. She played bit parts in Hollywood movies before being cast as the exotic mis¬ tress in the 1925 production of Ben-Hur, which established her early film persona as a foreign vamp. She earned praise as the wittily sophisticated Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934) and its sequels and in other movies such as The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), and Lonely hearts (1958). Dubbed the “Queen of Hollywood” during her heyday, she evinced equality in a male-dominated world, and her combination of beauty and brains made male audiences regard her as the ideal mate. She worked for the American Red Cross in World War II and later for UNESCO.
loyalist American colonist loyal to Britain in the American Revolution. About one-third of American colonists were loyalists, including office¬ holders who served the British crown, large landholders, wealthy mer¬ chants, Anglican clergy and their parishioners, and Quakers. Loyalists were most numerous in the South, New York, and Pennsylvania, but they did not constitute a majority in any colony. At first they urged modera¬ tion in the struggle for colonial rights; when denounced by radical patri¬ ots, they became active partisans. Some joined the British army, including 23,000 from New York; when captured in battle, they were treated as trai¬ tors. All states passed laws against them, confiscating or heavily taxing their property. Beginning in 1776, about 100,000 loyalists fled into exile, many to Canada. Public sentiment against them diminished after 1789, and punitive state laws were repealed by 1814.
Loyola, Saint Ignatius of orig. Inigo de Onaz y Loyola (b.
1491, Loyola, Castile—d. July 31, 1556, Rome; canonized March 12, 1622, feast day July 31) Spanish founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Born into the nobility, he began his career as a soldier. While convalesc¬ ing from wounds inflicted by a French cannonball in 1521, he experienced a religious conversion. After a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he pursued reli¬ gious studies in Spain and France. In Paris he gathered about him the companions (including St. Francis Xavier) who were to join him in found¬ ing the Jesuits. He was ordained a priest in 1537 and established the Soci¬ ety of Jesus in 1539. The new order received papal approval in 1540, and Loyola served as its general until his death, by which time it had branches in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal, India, and Brazil. Loyola described his mystical vision of prayer in The Spiritual Exercises. In his last years he laid the foundations of a system of Jesuit schools.
Lozi \'lo-ze\ or Barotse \bo-'rat-s9\ Complex of 25 Bantu-speaking peoples divided into six cultural groups centring on the area formerly known as Barotseland in western Zambia. Numbering more than 700,000, the Lozi move between two sets of villages in response to annual flood¬ ing. Their economy is based on agriculture, animal husbandry, and fish¬ ing. Their stratified society consists of aristocrats, commoners, and serfs.
LSD in full lysergic acid diethylamide Highly potent hallucino¬ genic drug. An organic compound, LSD can be derived from the alkaloids ergotamine and ergonovine, found in the ergot fungus, but most LSD is produced synthetically. It can block the action of the neurotransmitter serotonin and produces marked deviations from normal perceptions and behaviour lasting 8-10 hours or longer. Mood shifts, time and space dis¬ tortions, and impulsive behaviour may progress to paranoia and aggres¬ sion. Flashbacks to LSD-induced hallucinations can occur years later. LSD is not an approved drug, and no clinically valuable uses have been found for it.
Lu Vassal state of ancient China that originated during the Western Zhou and came to prominence in the Warring States period of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. It is known as the birthplace of Confucius. The Chunqiu (“Spring and Autumn Annals”), one of the Confucian Classics, records the major events at the court of Lu between 722 and 481 bc.
Lu Hsiang-shan See Lu Xiangshan Lu Hsun See Lu Xun
Lu Jiuyuan See Lu Xiangshan Lu-ta See Dalian
Lu Xiangshan or Lu Hsiang-shan Vlii-'shyaq-'shaM or Lu Jiuyuan Vlli-'jyo-'ywanX (b. 1139, Kiangsi, China—d. Jan. 10, 1193, China) Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Southern Song dynasty. A government official and a teacher, he was the rival of the great Neo- Confucian rationalist Zhu Xi. Lu taught that the highest knowledge of the way (dao) comes from constant inner reflection and self-examination. In this process, one develops or recovers the fundamental goodness of one’s nature. Lu’s writings were published after his death, and his thought was revised three centuries later by Wang Yangming, who established the Xinxue school of Neo-Confucianism, often called the Lu-Wang school.
Lu Xun or Lu Hsun \'lu-'shLen\ orig. Zhou Shuren (b. Sept. 25, 1881, Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, China—d. Oct. 19, 1936, Shanghai) Chinese writer. He became associated with the nascent Chinese literary movement in 1918 (part of the larger May Fourth Movement), when he published his short story “Diary of a Madman,” a condemnation of tra¬ ditional Confucian culture and the first Western-style story written wholly in Chinese. Though best known for his fiction, he was also a master of the prose essay, a vehicle he used especially late in life. He never joined the Communist Party himself, but he recruited many of his countrymen to communism and came to be considered a revolutionary hero.