[PW] my traditional New Year's questions

[Bill Davis]

I imagine the Napoleon delusion stems from reported examples from asylums 
during the 19th century, when Napoleon loomed large in the imagination, 
especially the European imagination, but at any rate, the stereotype was 
established by 1904, when Edison made a film (or two films) portraying a 
lunatic -- complete with Napoleonic uniform -- fighting off and escaping 
his keepers, shown under the titles "Manic Chase" and "The Escaped 
Lunatic."   Before he teamed up with Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel in his first 
film, "Nuts in May" (1917), played a character who thought he was 
Napoleon.  The film was later recut into another version "Mixed Nuts" (1922).

Bill Davis


At 05:04 PM 1/10/2008, you wrote:

>Colleagues,
>
>In keeping with a now-ancient tradition (at least five years  old), I ask the
>questions that I always ask early each year:
>
>
>
>6.  A standard graphic cliche indicates that a person is insane by  depicting
>him in Napoleonic costume, with right hand tucked into his  tunic.  What is
>the origin of this convention?  Does it have anything  to do with the report
>that Henry James, when moribund, talked as if he thought  he was Napoleon?