Nobel prize in literature 2018 - what is "encyclopedic passion"?

Question

The question is inspired by the today's announcement of the Nobel prize awards in Literature for 2018 and 2019.

The short description for Olga Tokarczuk has been worded as follows:

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2018 was awarded to Olga Tokarczuk "for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life." Source

The expression encyclopedic passion sounds really odd both to me and to the author of this question on Literature.SE: Understanding this year's Nobel prizes, which, in fact, inspired me to ask for help on English.SE.

I will simply quote one paragraph from this question:

I can't make sense of terms like "encyclopedic passion". "Encyclopedic knowledge" is a common phrase that I understand. Encyclopedias are the books where one finds the most knowledge. So this term makes sense to describe someone who has vast knowledge. But I do not understand the relationship between encylopedias and passion.

Collins Dictionary, for example, gives:

adjective [usually ADJECTIVE noun]
If you describe something as encyclopedic, you mean that it is very full, complete, and thorough in the amount of knowledge or information that it has.

and

encyclopedic in British
or encyclopaedic (ɛnˌsaɪkləʊˈpiːdɪk)

adjective

1. of, characteristic of, or relating to an encyclopedia
2. covering a wide range of knowledge; comprehensive

So, how exactly shall one interpret (perceive, digest) encyclopedic passion?

Answer 1

Passion:

If you have a passion for something, you have a very strong interest in it and like it very much.

• She had a passion for gardening. [+ for]

• Anton has a consuming passion for science

(Collins Dictionary)

Encyclopedic:

Embracing many subjects; comprehensive:

• “an ignorance almost as encyclopedic as his erudition” ( William James )

(AHD)

comprehending a wide variety of information; comprehensive:

• an encyclopedic memory.

(Dictionary.com)

An encyclopedic passion > a passion for a wide range of knowledge.

Answer 2

Merriam-Webster has perhaps the most useful and broadest definition:

encyclopedic:

of, relating to, or suggestive of an encyclopedia or its methods of treating or covering a subject : COMPREHENSIVE

an encyclopedic mind

an encyclopedic collection of armor

So 'encyclopedic passion' is probably intended to be read as a wide-ranging, catholic spread of things in which a deep interest is taken. In a less formal register, being 'into everything'.

Answer 3

I get the same feeling as you. The use of encyclopedic with passion is a bit odd.

The meaning I would ascribe to it is that Olga Tokarczuk has a passion for encyclopedias and that her bookshelves are groaning under the weight of the various editions of Chambers' Cyclopedia or Diderot's and D'Alembert's Encyclopédie she's been patiently collecting over the years. For all I know, that could be it, bibliomania comes in many forms, but I doubt it.

They would have been better off saying she has a passion for knowledge but the phrase is a bit clichéd and the Stockholm luminaries probably wanted to avoid it.

Answer 4

This is amusing. It is the kind of word a child might choose from a dictionary or thesaurus before has acquired a deep knowledge of the language he is using. I doubt that this is the case however. My thesaurus gives comprehensive as an alternative for encyclopedic. That is an appropriate adjective for knowledge but not for the list of vegetables in a garden or for a butterfly collection and certainly not for anybody's passion. We know what the writer meant so let us smile and move on.

Answer 5

This is bad choice of word because "passion" is to do with emotions or affect whereas "encyclopedic" has to do with knowledge or instruction. Word meanings do change over the centuries but gradually and not because an individual is not fully conversant with the language used. Did Humpty Dumpty write that. Remember him from Alice in Wonderland? “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone , “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”