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Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray's 128-line iambic-pentameter poem (also called An Elegy wrote in a Country Church Yard), completed 1750 and anonymously published by Dodsley in February 1751; a graveyard-school meditation on the rural dead.
Eleh Ezkerah
Eleh Ezkerah (אלה אזכרה, "These I remember") is a medieval Ashkenazic liturgical poem mourning the Ten Martyrs, ten rabbis executed by the Romans for teaching Torah, recited on Yom Kippur.
Elementals (Marvel Comics)
The Elementals are a team of four nearly immortal extradimensional supervillains in Marvel Comics, Hellfire, Hydron, Magnum, and Zephyr, who control fire, water, earth, and air and first appeared in Supernatural Thrillers #8.
Elena Gilbert
Elena Gilbert, also known as Elena Salvatore, is the central protagonist of The Vampire Diaries, created by L. J. Smith in her 1991 novel series and portrayed on television by Nina Dobrev.
Elendil
Elendil, also called Elendil the Tall, is Tolkien's Númenórean high king who escaped Númenor's drowning, founded Arnor and Gondor, wielded Narsil, and died fighting Sauron in the Last Alliance.
Eliza Doolittle
Eliza Doolittle is the Cockney flower seller at the center of Shaw's 1912 play Pygmalion, transformed by phonetics professor Henry Higgins to pass as a lady, later famous through the musical My Fair Lady and its 1964 film.
Elizabeth Bennet
Elizabeth Bennet (Eliza, Lizzy): heroine of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813), second of five Bennet sisters, witty and quick to judge; her mistaken prejudice against Darcy, undone by his letter, distinguishes her from all other characters of the same name.
Ella Enchanted
Ella Enchanted (1997) is Gail Carson Levine's Newbery Honor-winning debut, a Cinderella retelling in which Ella of Frell is cursed at birth with obedience by the fairy Lucinda. Adapted loosely into a 2004 Anne Hathaway film.
Ellaria Sand
Ellaria Sand is a character in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, played by Indira Varma. Oberyn Martell's paramour and mother of four Sand Snakes; in the books she opposes revenge, in the show she leads it.
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen: joint pseudonym of American cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, and the fictional amateur detective they created in The Roman Hat Mystery (1929), famous for fair-play puzzles, the Challenge to the Reader, and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard (1925–2013), nicknamed Dutch, American crime novelist and former Western writer; author of Get Shorty, Glitz, Out of Sight, and Fire in the Hole; famed for dialogue-driven style and the 10 Rules of Writing.
Éloges
Éloges is the first poetry collection of the French poet and diplomat Alexis Léger, later known as Saint-John Perse, published in 1911 and celebrating his childhood in Guadeloupe.
Eloi
The Eloi are the frail, childlike surface-dwelling descendants of humanity in H. G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895), living in 802,701; farmed and eaten by the underground Morlocks, they embody the degeneration of Wells's leisured upper class.
Eloisa to Abelard
Eloisa to Abelard, Alexander Pope's 1717 heroic epistle of 366 lines, voices the twelfth-century nun Heloise's struggle between love of Abelard and religious vocation, based on Hughes's 1713 translation and widely imitated in France.
Eloise (books)
Eloise, also Kay Thompson's Eloise, is a children's picture-book series by Kay Thompson and illustrator Hilary Knight, begun in 1955, about a six-year-old living at New York's Plaza Hotel; not the Bridgerton character or other namesakes.
Elonga
Elonga is a novel in French by the Gabonese writer Angèle Ntyugwetondo Rawiri, published in Paris in 1980 and widely regarded as the first novel by a Gabonese woman.
Elphaba
Elphaba Thropp, created by Gregory Maguire in the 1995 novel Wicked, reimagines the Wicked Witch of the West; lead of the 2003 Broadway musical and the Cynthia Erivo films.
Elric of Melniboné
Elric of Melniboné is Michael Moorcock's albino sorcerer-emperor anti-hero, created in 1961 as a deliberate anti-Conan, wielder of the soul-drinking sword Stormbringer, star of a six-novel saga and many adaptations.
Elrond
Elrond Half-elven (Peredhel), son of Eärendil and Elwing, twin of Elros, is Tolkien's Lord of Rivendell, keeper of Vilya, herald of Gil-galad, father of Arwen, foster-father of Aragorn, and a bridge across the First, Second, and Third Ages.
Elseworlds
Elseworlds is DC Comics' imprint for out-of-continuity stories reimagining heroes in new eras and settings, launched after Gotham by Gaslight (1989), first logo comic Batman: Holy Terror (1991), dormant around 2005, revived from 2024 with comics and DC Studios media label.
Elveskud
Elveskud (Elverskud), Danish for "Elf-shot," is a medieval Scandinavian ballad, DgF 47, in which knight Herr Oluf is killed by an elf-maiden on his wedding eve.
Émaux et camées
Émaux et camées is a collection of short poems by the French writer Théophile Gautier, first published in 1852, embodying art for art's sake and founding Parnassianism.
Emblem book
An emblem book is a collection of emblems, each combining a motto, a symbolic picture, and an explanatory verse, invented by Andrea Alciato in 1531.
Emerald City
Emerald City: the fictional capital of the Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's 1900 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, appearing green only through locked green spectacles; also The Emerald City of Oz (1910), NBC's 2017 series, and Jennifer Egan's 1993 collection.
Emilia Galotti
Emilia Galotti is a bourgeois tragedy in five acts by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, first performed in Braunschweig in 1772 and set in the Italian duchy of Guastalla.
Emilia Lanier theory of Shakespeare authorship
The Emilia Lanier (Emilia Bassano) theory of Shakespeare authorship: the 2009 John Hudson claim that the 1611 poet and alleged Dark Lady wrote Shakespeare's works, its Rowse 1973 roots, and mainstream rejection.
Emily Fields
Emily Fields (Emily Catherine Fields), the athletic swimmer of Pretty Little Liars, played by Shay Mitchell on Freeform 2010-2017 and created by Sara Shepard in the books; a lesbian character whose coming-out arc drew scholarly and fan analysis.
Emily Is Away
Emily Is Away is Kyle Seeley's 2015 free-to-play Steam interactive story set in an AOL Instant Messenger recreation on Windows XP, spanning five yearly chats (2002–2006) with Emily, followed by Emily is Away Too (2017) and Emily is Away <3 (2021).
Emina
"Emina" is a love poem by Aleksa Šantić, published in 1902 and dedicated to Emina Sefić of Mostar; as a song it became a famous sevdalinka.
Emma (novel)
Emma is Jane Austen's fourth published novel (composed 1814–1815, published December 1815 by John Murray), about Highbury matchmaker Emma Woodhouse. Known for its free indirect discourse, Walter Scott's 1816 review, and adaptations including Clueless and the 2020 film.