Biographies E

 

Johann Eckermann (1792-1854) German writer, best known for his Conversations with Goethe (3 vols., 1836-48).

 

Meister Eckhart (1260-1327) German Catholic mystic, whose meditations demonstrated the influence of Neo-Platonism.

 

Irwin Edman (1896-1954) American intellectual, author, and editor.

 

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) American Puritan minister and theologian, most famous for his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

 

King Edward VII (1841-1910) Son of Queen Victoria, King of England from 1901 to 1910. Explain Edwardian here.

 

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-born American physicist and Nobel laureate, creator of the special and general theories of relativity and one of the great geniuses of the 20th century. His discoveries lead to the development of nuclear weapons.

 

Mircea Eliade (1907-86) Romanian philosopher, novelist, poet, and historian of religion, author of The Sacred and the Profane, The Forge and the Crucible, and many other books.

 

Elijah "[T]he most popular Hebrew prophet. The period of his lifetime (see 1 Kings 17-19:21; 2 Kings 1, 2) was one of social and religious change. Elijah led the struggle against the idolatrous worship of the Phoenician god Baal, whom Ahab, king of Israel, had worshiped" [Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation].

 

George Eliot (1819-80) Important Victorian British novelist (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans), author of Silas Marner, Adam Bede, Middlemarch and other works.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American Romantic poet, essayist, and lecturer, a key figure among New England Transcendentalists. Barfield speaks admiringly of his theory of poetry ("Language is fossil poetry." "Poetry was all written before time was.").

 

Sir William Empson (1906-84) British poet and critic, an influence on the development of New Criticism, and author of Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), The Structure of Complex Words (1951), and numerous other works.

 

M. C. Escher (1898-1972) Dutch graphic artist, famous for his representations of logical impossibilities,  three dimensional connundrums, and what Douglas Hofstadter calls "strange loops."

 

Euclid (around third century B.C.) Greek mathematician, formulator of the basic laws of geometry.

 

Leonhard Euler (1707-83) Swiss pure mathematician.

 

Euripides (480-406) Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, one of the three great Greek tragic dramatists.

 

Edward Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) British anthropologist, one of the founders of the British School of Structural Functionalists. Author of Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande (1937), The Nuer (1949), and Theories of Primitive Religion (1970).

 

Evodius (died 64-67). "The first Bishop of Antioch after St. Peter. Eusebius mentions him thus in his "History": 'And Evodius having been established the first [bishop] of the Antiochians, Ignatius flourished at this time' (III, 22)" [from The Catholic Encyclopedia]. He may have coined the word "Christian."