In psychiatry, monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, mania) is a type of paranoia in which the patient has only one idea or type of ideas. Emotional monomania is that in which the patient is obsessed with only one emotion or several related to it; intellectual monomania is that which is related to only one kind of delirious idea or ideas. Psychiatrist redirects here. ... Mania is a severe medical condition characterized by extremely elevated mood, energy, and thought patterns. ... For other senses of this word, see paranoia (disambiguation). ...

In colloquial terms, the term monomania is often attached to subcultures that to the general public appear esoteric. However, the differences between monomania and passion can be very subtle and difficult to recognize. In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a set of people with distinct sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part. ...

Monomania in literature

The 19th century writer Edgar Allan Poe would often write tales in which the narrator and protagonist would suffer some form of monomania, becoming excessively fixated on an idea, an urge, an object, or a person, often to the point of mental and/or physical destruction. Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. ...

An important book about monomania is Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat and other stories" which includes:

1. The Black Cat (a man fears his cat and kills it, adopts another cat, kills his wife, and is then punished by the cat)
2. The Oval Portrait (about a painter who is obsessed with painting his wife)
3. Berenice (about a madman who wants to marry his sick cousin only for her beautiful teeth)
4. The Masque of the Red Death (a prince fears a terrible disease but finally gets ill from the red death and dies)
5. The Tell-Tale Heart (a madman is obsessed with an elderly man's eye)

It is said that Flaubert's hatred of the bourgeois and their bêtise (willful idiocy), that began in his childhood, developed into a kind of monomania. The Black Cat is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. ... The Oval Portrait is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe involving the disturbing tale of a portrait in a chateau. ... Berenice is a short horror story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1835. ... The Masque of the Red Death is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in the May 1842 edition of Grahams Ladys and Gentlemans Magazine as The Mask of the Red Death. The story was adapted in 1964 by Roger Corman into a... Illustration by Harry Clarke, detail from He shrieked once -once only The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, which was first published in James Russell Lowells The Pioneer in January 1843; Poe republished it in his periodical The Broadway Journal for August 23, 1845. ... Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – Croisset, May 8, 1880) is counted among the greatest Western novelists. ... Bourgeois at the end of the thirteenth century. ...

It is monomania from which Flaubert's tragic heroine, 'Madame Bovary' suffers; in her case it takes the form of an incessant guilt and fear of discovery. The same monomanic fear is explored in great depth in M E Braddon's novel, 'Lady Audley's Secret', through the protagonist Robert Audley, whom the guilty woman accuses of monomania in his relentless attempt to prove her guilt. She describes monomania thus:

What is one of the strangest diagnostics of madness--what is the first appalling sign of mental aberration? The mind becomes stationary; the brain stagnates; the even current of reflection is interrupted; the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a monotone. As the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid and corrupt through lack of action; and the perpetual reflection upon one subject resolves itself into monomania.

In Crime and Punishment, the magnum opus of renowned 19th-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, the main character, Raskolnikov, is said to be a monomaniac on numerous occasions. Crime and Punishment (Russian: Преступление и наказание) is a novel written by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. ... Magnum opus (sometimes Opus magnum, plural magna opera), from the Latin meaning great work,[1] refers to the best, most popular, or most renowned achievement of an author, artist, or composer, and most commonly one who has contributed a very large amount of material. ... Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Russian: Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский, IPA: , sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky  ) (November 11 [O.S. October 30] 1821 – February 9 [O.S. January 28] 1881) is considered one of the greatest Russian writers as well as one of the greatest writers internationally. ... Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov is the protagonist of Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. ...

In Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851), Captain Ahab is a monomaniac, as shown by his quest to kill Moby Dick. One particular situation where he is shown as a monomaniac is in the crew's first encounter with the whale, stating "in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished.” For other uses see Moby-Dick in popular culture Moby-Dick[1] is an 1851 novel by Herman Melville. ... Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, essayist and poet. ...

In Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is decribed as a monomaniac, obsessing over his reunion with Cathy in the final chapters of the novel. Emily Brontë (July 30, 1818 - December 19, 1848) was a British novelist and poet, best remembered for her one novel Wuthering Heights, an acknowledged classic of English literature. ... Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontës only novel. ... Heathcliff may refer to any of these : Heathcliff is a character from the book Wuthering Heights Heathcliff (musical) is a musical based on Wuthering Heights Heathcliff is a comic strip about a cat of the same name Dr. Heathcliff Cliff Huxtable, the lead character on The Cosby Show This is...