1. Shakespeare and His Ghosts
Presented by: Harvinder,Qais, Zaynab and Julia

2. Elizabethan/Jacobean ideas about ghosts
PURGATORY = (in Catholic doctrine) a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven.
: Significant religious change.
Catholics: Believed in purgatory
Protestants: Believed in ghosts as demons, but not purgatory
Shakespeare’s beliefs?
-Audience would appreciate Hamlet’s dilemma.
Real or not?
Visible to one person (crazy person)
E.g Macbeth, Julius Caesar
Society and audience.
Why are the ghosts used? (purpose)
E.g: ghost of Banquo (Macbeth)
“Confin’d to fast in fires
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg’d away” -Ghost to Hamlet.

3. Scholars and Playwrights
Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights engaged with new ways of thinking.
The purpose of ghosts in early modern drama:
Frighten the audience (hence ENGAGING them)
Explore the VALIDITY of character’s actions/responsibilities
Introduce moral rather than supernatural frameworks.
SHAKESPEARE:
Makes dramatic use of what was an abstract point of theology.
In Hamlet, as in no other play of the period, we find the very uncertainties of Shakespeare’s contemporaries about the nature of ghosts TURNED INTO DRAMA

4. Debating ghosts...real or not?
VISIBLE TO ONE PERSON
SEEN BY SEVERAL WITNESSES
Example : MACBETH
Supernatural elements (the dagger, Banquo’s ghost, apparitions) - Only seen by Macbeth
Lack ontological existence- enables exploration of MOTIVE, PHYSIOLOGY and EVIL
Banquo’s ghost- EXPOSES and CLARIFIES questions concerning morality and existence of evil
Example: HAMLET
Seen by: Barnardo, Marcellus, Horatio and Hamlet (separate witnesses, unusual)
Ontological existence=confirmed
Horatio and Hamlet (scholars) grapple with the MEANING of the apparition
Ghost of Old Hamlet- INTRODUCES questions concerning moral certainties linked to VENGEANCE

5. Seneca The Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was an Ancient Roman dramatist and his work strongly influenced Early modern playwrights to use Seneca’s dramatic conventions, such as the use of ghosts, for their own work. These early modern plays utilise the dramatic forms of a previous era to shed light on the concerns of their own, which leads to a kind of complexity that mirrors the extreme nature of the Elizabethan/Jacobean era.
However there were some differences in the late 16th century compared to their uses in Seneca’s texts. Instead of being wailing insistent spectres that emerge from Hades to demand vengeance, early modern ghosts (for example Banquo’s ghost in Macbeth) are quite restrained and sometimes even silent.
The ghost helps expose and clarify the motivation and influences of key
characters, a role exemplified by Banquo’s ghost in Macbeth. This play is not a revenge tragedy and Banquo’s ghost does not demand vengeance. Instead it raises questions about morality, the existence of evil, and the extent to which Macbeth can be judged for his actions.

6. Melancholic ghosts

7. Scholars and Playwrights
Read the most relevant scholars

8. ‘Out of my weakness and melancholy’ Ghost’s AUTHORITY is UNDERMINED:
EXAMPLE: MACBETH
EXAMPLE: HAMLET
‘Out of my weakness and melancholy’
Macbeth speculates this possibility in relation to the dagger apparition:
‘A false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?’
Humoral psycho-physiology: Ancient Greek idea of how our ACTIONS and overall health is determined by an IMBALANCE between ‘HUMOURS’ within the body
Ghost’s AUTHORITY is UNDERMINED:
Spirit may be a result of Satan's MANIPULATION of his STATE OF MELANCHOLY
Ghost is NOT Satan but a TANGIBLE REPRESENTATION of the protagonist’s DISTURBED MIND
Talk more about macbeth when discussing and less about hamlet

9. So...how does this apply to Hamlet?
Central problem for Hamlet:
Is the spirit a DIVINE AGENT urging Hamlet to address the MORAL IMBALANCE at court?
‘A spirit of health or a goblin damn’d?’ OR
A result of SATAN MANIPULATING his state of ‘melancholy’?
‘Out of my weakness and melancholy’

10. Looking further... DRAMATIC DEVICE: CATALYST
Exploration of a CENTRAL CHARACTER’S LEGITIMACY as a REVENGER
Introduces MORAL QUESTIONS linked to VENGEANCE
SYMBOLISM:
HAMLET= SYMBOL the CONFLICTED EARLY MODERN MAN
LOYALTY
HUMOURAL PHYSIO-PSYCHOLOGY
REVENGE= ‘wild justice’
AMBIGUITY:
Hamlet LACKS MORAL CERTAINTY of Senecan revengers.
GHOST CATALYST
symbol = conflicted modern man- Scholar, Horatio ‘a guilty thing’ grapple w/ meaning of apparition (separate witnesses)