Eliot, Charles William (b. March 20, 1834, Boston, Mass., U.S.—d. Aug. 22, 1926, Northeast Harbor, Maine) U.S. educator and influential university president. He studied at Harvard University and taught math¬ ematics and chemistry there (1858-63) and at MIT (1865-69). Eliot was named president of Harvard in 1869 after studying European educational systems, and he soon set about a program of fundamental reforms. He demanded a place for the sciences in liberal education, and he replaced the program of required courses for undergraduates with the elective sys¬ tem. Under Eliot, the graduate school of arts and sciences was created (1890), Radcliffe College was established (1894), the quality of the pro¬ fessional schools was raised, and the university became an institution of world renown. His reforms had widespread influence in American higher education. After resigning in 1909, he edited the 50-volume Harvard Classics (1909-10), wrote several books, and devoted himself to public service.
Eliot, George orig. Mary Ann Evans later Marian Evans (b.
Nov. 22, 1819, Chilvers Coton, War¬ wickshire, Eng.—d. Dec. 22, 1880,
London) British novelist. Eliot was raised with a strong evangelical piety but broke with religious orthodoxy in her 20s. She worked as a transla¬ tor, a critic, and a subeditor of the Westminster Review (1851—54).
Later she turned to fiction. Adopting a masculine pseudonym to evade prejudice against women novelists, she first brought out Scenes of Cleri¬ cal Life (1858). This was followed by such classic works as Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860),
Silas Marne r (1861), Romo la (1862- 63), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), and Daniel Deronda (1876). Her masterpiece, Middlemarch (1871—
72), provides a thorough study of every class of provincial society. The method of psychological analysis she developed would become char¬ acteristic of modern fiction. With the journalist, philosopher, and critic George Henry Lewes (1817-78), a mar¬ ried man, she enjoyed a long and happy, though scandalous, liaison; their Sunday-aftemoon salons were a brilliant feature of Victorian life.
Eliot, John (b. 1604, Widford, Hertfordshire, Eng.—d. May 21, 1690, Roxbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony) English Puritan missionary to the Indians of Massachusetts Bay Colony. He emigrated to Boston in 1631 and became pastor of a church in nearby Roxbury. Supported by his con¬ gregation and fellow ministers, he began a mission to the American Indi¬ ans that inspired the creation in 1649 of the first genuine missionary society (financed chiefly from England). His methods set the pattern of subsequent Native American missions for almost two centuries. His trans¬ lation of the Bible into the Algonquian language was the first Bible printed in North America.
Eliot, T(homas) S(tearns) (b. Sept. 26, 1888, St. Louis, Mo., U.S.—d. Jan. 4, 1965, London, Eng.) U.S.-British poet, playwright, and critic. Eliot studied at Harvard University before moving to England in 1914, where he would work as an editor from the early 1920s until his death. His first important poem, and the first modernist masterpiece in English, was the radically experimental “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915). The Waste Land (1922), which expresses with startling power the disillusionment of the postwar years, made his international reputation. His first critical volume, The Sacred Wood (1920), introduced concepts much discussed in later critical theory. He married in 1915; his wife was mentally unstable, and they separated in 1933. (He married again, hap¬ pily, in 1957.) His conversion to Anglicanism in 1927 shaped all his sub¬ sequent works. His last great work was Four Quartets (1936-42), four poems on spiritual renewal and the connections of the personal and his¬ torical past and present. Influential later essays include “The Idea of a Christian Society” (1939) and “Notes Towards the Definition of Culture” (1948). His play Murder in the Cathedral (1935) is a verse treatment of St. Thomas Becket’s martyrdom; his other plays, including The Cocktail Party (1950), are lesser works. From the 1920s on he was the most influ-
Lapith fighting a Centaur; detail of a metope from the Parthenon at Athens; one of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum
HIRMER FOTOARCHIV, MUNCHEN
George Eliot, chalk drawing by F.W. Burton, 1865; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
614 i Elis ► Elizabeth of Hungary
ential English-language modernist poet. He won the Nobel Prize for Lit¬ erature in 1948; from then until his death he achieved public admiration unequaled by any other 20th-century poet.
Elis Ve-lis\ modem Ilia \el-'ya\ Ancient Greek region and city-state, northwestern Peloponnese, Greece. Bounded by Achaea, Arcadia, Messe- nia, and the Ionian Sea, the region was known for its horse breeding and was the site of the Olympic Games. As an ally of Athens in the Pelopon¬ nesian War, Elis lost much of its territory. Later, by emphasizing the sanc¬ tity of the Olympic Games, it regained some land and even some independence after the Roman occupation of Greece (146 bc), only to disintegrate with the collapse of the Roman Empire. The modern locality contains the archaeological site of Olympia, scene of the games.
Elisabethville See Lubumbashi
Elisha \i-'li-sh3\ (fl. 9th century bc) Hebrew prophet. As the successor of Elijah, he was strongly devoted to the Mosaic tradition of Israel and a potent enemy of all foreign gods and cults. He instigated a revolt against the ruling house of Israel, the dynasty of Omri, that resulted in the death of the king and his family. Elisha’s story is told in the Hebrew scriptures in the books 1 and 2 Kings.
Elisha ben Abuyah (fl. ad 100) Jewish scholar and apostate. Born before the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem (ad 70), he became a respected rabbi but then won notoriety for breaking Jewish laws and abandoning Judaism. He was well versed in Greek thought, and the motives for his apostasy may have been devotion to philosophy, mem¬ bership in a Gnostic sect, or conversion to Christianity. He was denounced in the Talmud and was known as Aher (“the Other”) because his apostasy made his name repugnant.
Elista \e-'lye-sto,\ English \e-'lis-t9\ formerly (1944-57) Stepnoy \styip-'noi\ City (pop., 1999 est.: 101,700), capital of Kalmykia republic, southwestern Russia. It was founded in 1865 and became a city in 1930. In 1944, when the Kalmyks were exiled by Joseph Stalin for their alleged collaboration with the Germans, the republic was dissolved and the city became known as Stepnoy. The name Elista was restored in 1957. Agri¬ culture is important, and Elista also is a trade centre for the area.
Elizabeth (b. Dec. 24, 1837, Munich, Bavaria—d. Sept. 10, 1898, Geneva, Switz.) Empress consort of Austria (1854-98) and queen of Hun¬ gary (1867-98). Regarded as the most beautiful princess in Europe, she married her cousin, Emperor Francis Joseph, in 1854. She was popular with her subjects but offended Viennese high society with her impatience with rigid court etiquette. The Hungarians admired her, especially for her efforts in bringing about the Compromise of 1867. During a visit to Swit¬ zerland she was assassinated by an Italian anarchist.
Elizabeth or Elizabeth Stuart (b. Aug. 19, 1596, Falkland Palace, Fifeshire, Scot.—d. Feb. 13, 1662, Westminster, London, Eng.) Titular queen of Bohemia from 1619. Daughter of the Scottish king James VI (later James I of England), she came to English royal court in 1606. Noted for her beauty and charm, she became a favorite subject of the poets. In 1613 she was married to Frederick V, the elector palatine, who became king of Bohemia (as Frederick I) in 1619. After his defeat by the Catho¬ lic League in 1620, the couple went into exile, where Elizabeth spent the next 40 years. In 1661 her nephew Charles II grudgingly allowed her to return to England. Her most famous son was Prince Rupert.