Literary notes about fanatical (AI summary)
In literature, "fanatical" is often employed to intensify the nature of a character’s behavior or an ideological fervor, lending a stark edge to religious, political, or personal convictions. Writers use the term to imply an unyielding, sometimes extreme, passion that borders on irrationality, as when a blustering monk appears with unmistakable zeal [1] or when masses display a tendency toward fervor that political forces exploit [2]. The word also conveys an almost obsessive dedication, whether it is in the context of religious dogma [3] or a meticulous, almost mechanical precision in art and science [4, 5]. This versatility in usage illustrates how the adjective can serve to both criticize and underline the intensity with which certain beliefs or actions are pursued [6, 7].
- Our singing was finished, when in the place of the expected preacher, suddenly there appeared a blustering, fanatical Capuchin monk.
— from Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel translated and annotated by Emilie Michaelis ... and H. Keatley Moore. by Friedrich Fröbel - The Hierarchical Government makes a great deal of capital out of this fanatical tendency of the masses.
— from Three Years in Tibet by Ekai Kawaguchi - It is the most fanatical Mohammedan purgatory out of Arabia.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain - He acted in much the same way with regard to expression, marking his slight variations in the piano passages with fanatical precision.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner - Its fanatical interest in "happiness" shows the pathological condition of the subconscious self: it was a vital interest.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche - There was something excessive, almost fanatical, in his devotion to his “white lord.”
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad - He was in a manner devoted to it with a sort of inert fanaticism, or perhaps rather with a fanatical inertness.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad
