Graphomania
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Graphomania (from Greek γραφε — writing, [1] and μανία — insanity), also known as scribomania, refers to an obsessive impulse to write[2]. When used in a specifically psychiatric context, it labels a morbid mental condition characterized by the writing of long successions of unconnected meaningless words. [3][4] Graphomania is near condition to typomania - obsessiveness with seeing one's name in publication or with writing for being published, excessive symbolism or typology.[5]
Outside the psychiatric definitions of graphomania and related conditions, the word is used more broadly to label the urge and need write excessively, whether professional or not.
According to Kundera, graphomania is the groundless claim, sometimes being large-scale, of being a writer:
"The irresisitable proliferation of graphomania among politicians, taxi drivers, childbearers, lovers, murderers, thieves, prostitutes, officials, doctors, and patients shows me that everyone without exception bears a potential writer within him, so that the entire human species has good reason to go down the streets and shout: 'We are all writers!'"
—Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting [6]
Kundera's feeling about graphomania may be explained by the fact that such pejorative meaning of graphomania is actually often used in Post-Soviet block to denote foolish, unprofessional and excessive writings (not only in the form of literature, but also science), while logorrhea as a noun (with its negative, pejorative meaning) is not as often used. [7]
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[edit] Surrealism
"Graphomania" is also used as part of the name of several surrealist methods, including entopic graphomania.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Graphic, etymology Etymologyonline.com
- ^ Graphomania Medicine world
- ^ Scribomania, Everything 2, 2007-04-21
- ^ "The habit of excessive writing, of explaining, amplifying, and reiterating, of letter making and pamphleteering, forms a morbid symptom of known as “graphomania.” Some men may overload their natural tendency to write, but a certain class of lunatics use nearly all their mental activities in this occupation, to the endless annoyance of their friends, relatives and physicians."“Bryan’s Mental Condition:” One Psychiatrist’s View Source: New York Times, 27 September 1896.
- ^ Typomania, definition
- ^ 1978
- ^ Both Graphomania and Logorrhea have phonetically equal translations to Slavic languages.
[edit] External links
- Of Graphomania, Confession, and the Writing Self, Todd Napolitano Electronic Book Review