Bending one’s eye on vacancy? Stage ghosts, Shakespeare and the question of visibility in English drama

Abstract

From our 21st-century standpoint, we are used to seeing in the ghost of Hamlet the paragon of the spectral figure on the early modern stage. But how well or how little is this ghost representative of the numerous other plays and the ghosts they stage? How do Shakespeare’s ghosts relate to the history of shadows that stalked the English stages for more than six decades? One of the essential aspects of the returning soul of the dead is its condition of being seen (or at least heard), as most terms used for ghosts (apart from the English one derived from fear) testify. For what is a ghost if it cannot communicate? And how must an actor convey with his body the fact that he is supposed not to have one? On the one hand, the present paper will try to retrace the evolution of the central question of tangibility and visibility of ghosts on a theatre stage, using Shakespeare’s contributions as landmarks in a broader tradition of staging apparitions. On the other hand, it will confront this general trend with Shakespeare’s own development of that supernatural figure.