Random Image

You are here: Random Image > Words beginning with b > Random Image for babelet

Possible definitions for babelet

Babel
Russian short-story writer. Born Jewish in Ukraine, Babel grew up in an atmosphere of persecution that is reflected in his stories. M. Gorky encouraged him to travel abroad to expand his horizons. Out of his experience as a soldier in the war with Poland came the stories in Red Cavalry (1926). His Odessa Tales (1931) include realistic and humorous sketches of the Jewish ghetto outside Odessa. Initially well regarded in the Soviet Union, in the late 1930s Babel's writing was found incompatible with official literary doctrine. He was arrested in 1939 and died in a Siberian prison camp. He is often thought of as Russia's greatest writer of short stories after A. Chekhov.

In the Old Testament, a high tower built in Shinar (Babylonia). According to Genesis 11:1-9, the Babylonians wanted to build a tower "with its top in the heavens." Angry at their presumption, God disrupted the enterprise by confusing the languages of the workers so that they could no longer understand each other. The tower was left unfinished and the people dispersed over the face of the earth. The myth may have been inspired by a tower temple located north of the Marduk temple and known as Bab-ilu ("Gate of God").


ballet
Theatrical dance in which a formal academic technique (the danse d'\u00e9 cole) is combined with music, costume, and stage scenery. Developed from court productions of the Renaissance, ballet was renewed under Louis XIV, who established France's Acad\u00e9 mie Royale de Danse in 1661, where Pierre Beauchamp developed the five ballet positions. Early ballets were often accompanied by singing and were often incorporated into opera-ballets by such composers as J.-B. Lully. In the 18th cent. J.-G. Noverre and G. Angiolini separately developed the dramatic ballet (ballet d'action) to tell a story through dance steps and mime, a reform echoed in C. W. Gluck's music. Significant developments in the early 19th cent. included pointe work (balance on the extreme tip of the toe) and the emergence of the prima ballerina, exemplified by M. Taglioni and F. Elssler. In the late 19th and early 20th cent. Russia became the center of ballet production and performance, through such innovators as S. Diaghilev, A. Pavlova, V. Nijinsky, M. Petipa, and M. Fokine; great ballets were composed by P. Tchaikovsky and I Stravinsky. Since then, ballet schools in Great Britain and the U.S. have elevated ballet in those countries to Russia's level and greatly increased its audience. See also American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Ballets Russes, Bolshoi Ballet, New York City Ballet, Royal Ballet.

Top words beginning with B: biocomputing, builders, buttonless, ballads, bedead, bylines, brachiorrheuma, blowzier, barling, ber, bedsock, blabbed, balks, bosslet, blindest, bharat, bloodings, barbarian, brilliantine, benzopinacone

More words beginning with B.

Browse the alphabet: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z