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Possible definitions for womera

camera
Device for recording an image of an object on a light-sensitive surface (see photography). It is essentially a light-tight box with an opening (aperture) to admit light focused onto a sensitized film or plate. All cameras have included five crucial components: (1) the camera box, which holds and protects the sensitive film from all light except that entering through the lens; (2) film, on which the image is recorded; (3) the light control, consisting of an aperture or diaphragm and a shutter, both often adjustable; (4) the lens, which focuses the light rays from the subject onto the film, creating the image; and (5) the viewing system, which may be separate from the lens system (usually above it) or may operate through it by means of a mirror. The camera was inspired by the camera obscura--a dark enclosure with an aperture (usually provided with a lens) through which light enters to form an image of outside objects on the opposite surface--and was developed by J. N. Niepce and L.-J.-M. Daguerre in the early 19th cent. See also digital camera.


Himera
Ancient Greek city, N coast of Sicily. It was founded c.649 BC by Syracusan exiles and Chalcidian inhabitants of Zancle (see Messina). An unsuccessful Carthaginian invasion of Sicily ended in the death of Hamilcar at the Battle of Himera in 480 BC. It was finally destroyed in 409 BC by Hamilcar's grandson Hannibal. Its only visible relic is a Doric temple (480 BC); many of its lion-head spouts are exhibited in the Palermo Museum.


Homer
Greek poet, one of the greatest and most influential writers of all time. Though almost nothing is known of his life, he was probably an Ionian, and tradition holds that he was blind. The ancient Greeks attributed to him the great epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. Modern scholars generally agree that he composed (but probably did not literally write) the Iliad, most likely relying on oral traditions, and at least inspired the composition of the Odyssey. The Iliad, set during the Trojan War, tells the story of the wrath of Achilles; the Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus as he travels home from the war. The two epics provided the basis of Greek education and culture in the classical age and formed the backbone of humanistic education down to the Roman empire and the spread of Christianity.


opera
Musical drama made up of vocal pieces with orchestral accompaniment, overtures, and interludes. Opera was invented at the end of the 16th cent. in an attempt by the Camerata, an academy of Florentine poets, musicians, and scholars, to imitate ancient Greek drama, which was known to have been largely sung or chanted. Since no actual Greek music was known, composers had considerable freedom in reconceiving it. Imitations of Greek pastoral poetry became the basis for early opera libretti. The first operas, by Jacopo Peri (Dafne, 1598; lost) and G. Caccini (Euridice, 1600), consisted throughout of ...

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