Literary Ghosts: The Importance Of Hamlet’s Ghost

European playwrights and poets have incorporated ghosts into their work at least since the time of Homer. But until the time of Shakespeare, most literary ghosts had two things in common: 1) They were generally served up as “light fare” whose main function was to pleasantly frighten or otherwise entertain the audience rather than to deepen the audience’s understanding of the human mind and imagination, and 2) They were meant to be taken literally as ghosts; in other words, the audience was given no reason to think that the ghost was anything more or less than the actual shade of a departed person.

Then came Shakespeare, who along with his other astonishing innovations was one of the first Western writers to offer the possibility of a psychological ghost as opposed to a literal one. In Hamlet, most notably, Shakespeare leaves open the possibility that the armored ghost of Hamlet’s father may at least in part be the product of Hamlet’s own mind—specifically, a manifestation of his guilt at his failure to take action against his father’s murderer. [Read more…] about SHAKESPEARE’S GHOSTS

Ouija Board Dictation: Another Kind Of Ghost Writing

After the Ouija board became popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was only a matter of time before enterprising people got the idea to ask spirits to help them write books. Some of the spirits obliged, and the result was a small but interesting selection of literature—all fiction of course.

The most notorious case of literal ghost writing occurred with the 1917 publication of Jap Herron: A Novel Written from the Ouija Board, which Emily Grant Hutchings alleged had been dictated to her by the ghost of Mark Twain. (The Huckleberry Finn author died in 1910.) Not only did critics trash the book’s literary quality, but Twain’s estate and his publisher both objected to the claim that he had written it from beyond the grave. Jap Herron was eventually withdrawn from publication, and most copies were destroyed. [Read more…] about BOOKS WRITTEN BY GHOSTS

Creepy Pastas—AKA Contemporary Urban Ghost Lore

Ghost stories have taken a number of different forms over the centuries. Here in early 21st Century America, the newest incarnation is the “creepypasta,” a scary tale that circulates on the internet. Creepypastas usually originate among amateur storytellers who are fascinated by the supernatural; often these writers have been influenced by popular horror movies and online games. Creepypasta characters and other story elements frequently are shared and recycled among people who create them.

As with any creative undertaking practiced by large numbers of enthusiasts rather than by professionals, quality among creepypastas varies widely. Some are well written; many are not. Some are entertaining, while a sizable percentage suffer from predictability. [Read more…] about CREEPY PASTAS

Autumn’s Spirit

Through windows, movement
I think of my father’s ghost
But it’s falling leaves
—pg

Before 458 BC, Literary Ghosts Played Minor Parts

Elsewhere on this site, we’ve discussed ghosts who played “walk-on” roles in Homer’s epic Greek poems, the Illiad and The Odyssey. We also mentioned the one significant—though very brief—ghost story in the Old Testament.

It wasn’t until about four centuries after Homer that Aeschylus, the ancient Greek playwright known as “the father of tragedy,” gave us one of the first fictional works in which a ghost took a central dramatic role. The work is called The Eumenides, and it is the final play in a trilogy collectively known as the Oresteia, all of which deal with the murder and its aftermath of King Agamemnon by his wife, Clytemnestra, in the wake of the Trojan War. [Read more…] about FIRST GHOST IN A STARRING ROLE

The Bible Contains Surprisingly Few Ghost Stories

One particularly impressive aspect of humankind’s obsession with ghosts is that for over two millennia it has persisted and even flourished in Western literature and other forms of culture in spite of the fact that ghosts play no significant role in any of the Western Hemisphere’s three great religions: Judaism, Islam, or Christianity. Islam, for its part, teaches that there are no ghosts—ghostlike occurrences being attributed to other sorts of demonlike supernatural beings called jinns—while Christian teachings leave no room for the possibility of earthbound spirits: The souls of the dead go either to Heaven or Hell, or—in the case of the Catholic religion—possibly to Purgatory. (While officials of the Catholic Church do perform exorcisms to free people from supernatural affliction, these rituals are always meant to cast out demons—which never were human—rather than the disembodied spirits of the dead.)

As for the Jewish religion, ghosts are all but ignored in that great and ancient work of literature known as the Old Testament. The one notable Old Testament ghost reference occurs in Samuel 28:7-20 when King Saul, feeling himself abandoned by God, disguises himself as a beggar and visits the Witch of Endor. He asks the witch to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel, from whom he desires a prediction concerning the outcome of his upcoming battle against the Philistines. (The Odyssey probably predates the writing and compilation of the Old Testament, and it is interesting to note that King Saul’s desire to speak with the spirit of Samuel is so similar to Odysseus’ need to speak with the dead soothsayer, Teiresias.) [Read more…] about GHOSTS IN THE BIBLE

When Did People Start Writing Ghost Stories?

We know that stories about ghosts are as old as language itself. Stone age peoples in most parts of the world must have traded tales and warnings about the disembodied spirits of the dead. It was only natural that after writing developed some of humankind’s earliest literature began to include some ghostly material.

Some of the first Western literature reveals a preoccupation with doing right by the dead in order to prevent their ghosts from haunting the living. Homer’s epic poem, the Illiad, written nearly 3,000 years ago, contains the following passage (23.63 in Richmod Lattimore’s translation) in which a sleeping Achilles is berated by the ghost of his slain friend, Patroclus, for failing to properly tend to his corpse, thereby preventing him from entering the Land of the Dead (Lattimore: 23.99):

There appeared to him [Achilles] the ghost (psykhe) of unhappy Patroklos all in his likeness for stature, and lovely eyes, and voice, and wore such clothing as Patroklos had worn on his body. The ghost came and stood over his head and spoke a word to him: “You sleep, Akhilleus; you have forgotten me; but you were not careless of me when I lived, but only in death. Bury me as quickly as may be, let me pass through the gates of [Hades] (pylai Aidao). The souls (psykhai), the images (eidôla) of dead men, hold me at a distance, and will not let me cross the river and mingle among them, but I wander as I am by [Hades’] house of the wide gates (eurypyles Aidos dôma). And I call upon you in sorrow, give me your hand; no longer shall I come back from death, once you give me my rite of burning.” [Read more…] about ANCIENT GREEK GHOST STORIES