King Hamlet's Ghost in Belleforest?

Abstract

In the voluminous literature which has arisen in connection with all possible aspects of Shakespeare's Hamlet, a respectable percentage is found to deal with the Ghost. The character, function, and antecedents of the Ghost, like those of the other dramatis personae, have been subjected to the most searching scrutiny and analysis. In particular, Shakespeare's use of a ghost rôle in Hamlet has been discussed in relationship to the evolution of the Senecan ghost in Elizabethan drama, and compared to other “revenge” ghosts of contemporary or earlier authors. In the light of the obvious relationship of the ghost rôle in Hamlet to that of the Senecan-Elizabethan stage ghost, no further pedigree has seemed necessary for the Ghost himself as a character in the play. This is the more understandable in that, so far as I have been able to ascertain, the scholars who have discussed the sources of Hamlet have been unanimous in stating or implying that no trace of the Ghost exists in any of the accepted sources of the play. With the general accuracy of these impressions regarding the genesis of the rôle there can be no quarrel. It should nevertheless interest and perhaps startle researchers and students in the field to learn that the ghost of Hamlet's father did “appear” in one of the accepted sources of the play, the Histoires tragiques of François de Belieforest.