HONORS PS1500 - Physics in the Plays of Tom Stoppard

 Ghosts and the Renaissance

There were many interpretations of a ghost during Shakespeare's time. A ghost could be

• an hallucination

• a specter seen as a portent

• a spirit of a dead person returned to perform some deed left undone in life

• a spirit of a dead person returned from the grave or from purgatory by divine permission (the Catholic position)

• an angel disguised as a dead person, or a devil disguised as a dead person to tempt a living relative into eternal damnation (the Protestant position taught to Hamlet and Horatio at Wittenberg)

"The Garden of Earthly Delight," by Hieronymus Bosch (1504) - detail from right wing

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Last modified:  Monday, January 24, 2005 11:02 AM