- Graphomania
Graphomania (from Greek "γραφε" — writing, [ [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=graphic Graphic, etymology] Etymologyonline.com] and μανία — insanity), also known as scribomania, refers to an obsessive
impulse towrite [ [http://www.medicineword.com/graphomania.shtml Graphomania] Medicine world] . When used in a specifically psychiatric context, it labels a morbid mental condition characterized by the writing of long successions of unconnected meaningless words. [ [http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1300117&lastnode_id=0 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." [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5353/ “Bryan’s Mental Condition:” One Psychiatrist’s View] Source: New York Times, 27 September 1896.] Graphomania is near condition to typomania - obsessiveness with seeing one's name in publication or with writing for being published, excessive symbolism or typology. [ [http://www.wordquests.info/cgi/ice2-for.cgi?file=/hsphere/local/home/scribejo/wordquests.info/htm/L-Gk-mania-P-Z.htm&HIGHLIGHT=manias Typomania, definition] ]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:
quote
"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 [1978]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), whilelogorrhea as a noun (with its negative, pejorative meaning) is not as often used. [Both Graphomania and Logorrhea have phonetically equal translations to Slavic languages.]Surrealism
"Graphomania" is also used as part of the name of several surrealist methods, including
entopic graphomania .See also
*
Logomania References
External links
* [http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/writingpostfeminism/graphomaniac Of Graphomania, Confession, and the Writing Self, Todd Napolitano] Electronic Book Review
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