ABSTRACT
If Victorians conceived of madwomen as organic creatures that had surrendered to their gender's foundational instability, they deemed madmen true perversions of nature. Unlike Ellen Terry's naturalized madwomen, the psychological disorders plaguing Henry Irving's madmen designated them as aberrant, impotent, or dangerous. Variously regarded as self-indulgent egotists, high-strung neurotics, physical or intellectual weaklings, hedonists, and, particularly those with senile dementia, unproductive parasites, mentally ill men posed a threat to Western colonialist patriarchies even as their presence indexed the triumph of British and American modernity. Unlike Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, and Lucy Ashton, who experienced immediate, permanent breaks with sanity, Irving's neurotic and senile men were both aware of their deepening conditions and actively struggled to manage or alleviate their symptoms. The illnesses and deaths of Irving's madmen, toppled kingdoms, enfeebled patriarchies, and challenged the foundational stability of the male sex.
