Megalomania
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"Most of the Renaissance megalomania from Aretino to Tamburlaine is the immediate child of typography which provided the physical means of extending the dimensions of the private author in space and time. But to the student of manuscript culture, as Goldschmidt says (p. 88) : "One thing is immediately obvious: before 1500 or thereabouts people did not attach the same importance to ascertaining the precise identity of the author of a book they were reading or quoting as we do now. We very rarely find them discussing such points." --The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) by Marshall McLuhan |
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Megalomania is an obsession with power and wealth, and a passion for grand schemes.
Megalomania or megalomaniac may also refer to:
Psychology
- Narcissistic personality disorder
- Grandiose delusions
- Omnipotence (psychoanalysis), a stage of child development
- Mega-
- Mania
Etymology
From Proto-Hellenic *megalos, from Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂s (“big, great”), *meǵh₂los. Cognate with Albanian madh (“large”), Latin magnus (“large, great”), Proto-Germanic *mikilaz (“large, great”).