"Nothing is worse," Nietzsche once said, "than the smell of an ill-constituted soul." For this professor of Classics and son of a Protestant minister, things were not hidden, there were no secrets: the world revealed itself. From this base of materialism and realism, Nietzsche assaulted Christianity,

Bombast, Clever, Discourse as event, Dramatic, Epic, Euphoric, Flux, Joyful, Melancholy, Overflowing, Philosophy, Poststructuralism, Profane, Surface, Witty

A vocal faction insists that Welles never produced anything worthwhile after his milestone directorial debut, "Citizen Kane." Even those who find a hint of brilliance in "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Touch of Evil" dismiss the last decades of Welles' life as a sad parade of impractical projects an

Anxiety, Enigmatic, Epic, Excessive, Huge, Voluminous, Witty

The popular media has adopted the name Lolita to describe any sexually precocious young woman with a penchant for twisting older men around her finger. The original Lolita, however, was a more mythical creature, a "nymphet" (Nabokov coined the word especially for her), who at a mere 12 years of age c

Charming, Dense, Elegant, Erotic, Lush, Post-war literature, Witty

According to Randall Rothenberg, "Most great design, the sort that helps define or even fashion an era, derives from a particular vision. For this reason, most great design firms tend to die with their founders or evolve into corporate entities more skilled at making money than actually reshaping the

Funny, Playful, Witty