There is widespread belief inghosts in English-speaking cultures, whereghosts are manifestations of the spirits of the dead. The beliefs may date back toanimism orancestor worship beforeChristianization. The concept is a perennial theme in the literature and arts of English-speaking countries.
The English wordghost continuesOld Englishgāst, from a hypotheticalCommon Germanic*gaistaz. It is common toWest Germanic, but lacking inNorth andEast Germanic (the equivalent word inGothic isahma,Old Norse hasandicode: nor promoted to code: no m.,öndcode: nor promoted to code: no f.).The pre-Germanic form was*ghoisdo-s, apparently from a root denoting "fury, anger" reflected in Old Norsegeisacode: nor promoted to code: no "to rage." The Germanic word is recorded as masculine only, but likely continues a neuters-stem. The original meaning of the Germanic word would thus have been an animating principle of themind, in particular capable of excitation and fury (compareóðr). InGermanic paganism, "Germanic Mercury," and the laterOdin, was at the same time theconductor of the dead and the "lord of fury" leading theWild Hunt.
Besides denoting the human spirit or soul, of both the living and the deceased, the Old English word is used as a synonym of Latinspiritus, also in the meaning of "breath, blast" from the earliest attestations (9th century). It could also denote any good or evil spirit, such as angels and demons; theAnglo-SaxonGospel (Matthew 12:43) refers todemonic possession with the wordsse unclæna gast. Also from the Old English period, the word could denote the spirit of God, i.e.. the "Holy Ghost."[citation needed]
The now prevailing sense of "the soul of a deceased person, spoken of as appearing in a visible form" only emerges inMiddle English (14th century). The modern noun does, however, retain a wider field of application, on one hand extending to soul, spirit,vital principle,mind orpsyche, the seat of feeling, thought and moral judgement; on the other hand used figuratively of any shadowy outline, fuzzy or unsubstantial image, in optics, photography and cinematography especially a flare, secondary image or spurious signal.[1]
The synonymspook is aDutch loanword, akin toLow Germanspôk (of uncertain etymology); it entered the English language via theUnited States in the 19th century.[2][3][4][5] Alternative words in modern usage includespectre (from Latinspectrum), the Scottishwraith (of obscure origin),phantom (via French ultimately from Greekphantasma, comparefantasy) andapparition. The termshade inclassical mythology translates Greek σκιά,[6] or Latinumbra,[7] in reference to the notion of spirits in theGreek underworld.Haint is a synonym for ghost used in regional English of the southern United States,[8] and the "haint tale" is a common feature of southern oral and literary tradition.[9] The termpoltergeist is a German word, literally a "noisy ghost", for a spirit said to manifest itself by invisibly moving and influencing objects.[10]
Wraith is aScots word for "ghost, spectre, apparition". It came to be used in Scottish Romanticist literature, and acquired the more general or figurative sense of "portent,omen." In 18th- to 19th-century Scottish literature, it was also applied to aquatic spirits. The word has no commonly accepted etymology;OED notes "of obscure origin" only.An association with the verbwrithe was the etymology favored byJ. R. R. Tolkien.[11] Tolkien's use of the word in the naming of the creatures known as theRingwraiths has influenced later usage in fantasy literature. Bogey[12] orbogy/bogie is a term for a ghost, and appears in Scottish poetJohn Mayne'sHallowe'en in 1780.[13][14]
Arevenant is a deceased person returning from the dead to haunt the living, either as a disembodied ghost or alternatively as an animated ("undead") corpse. Also related is the concept of afetch, the visible ghost or spirit of a person yet alive.
Ghosts in medieval England were more substantial than ghosts described in theVictorian era, and there are accounts of a ghost being wrestled with and physically restrained until a priest could arrive to hear its confession. Some were less solid, and could move through walls. Often they were described as paler and sadder versions of the person they had been while alive, and dressed in tattered gray rags. The vast majority of reported sightings were male.[15]
Ghosts could also appear in other forms, more symbolic than direct representations of the person as they appeared in life. In one instance the ghost of a man appears as a great crow that gives off "scattered sparks of fire" from its sides.[16] Stranger still, another ghost in the same collection of Medieval stories manifests as "a rolling bale of hay, with a light glowing from its centre."[17] In both instances the ghosts are those common men, come to plead for services to be read in their names. These more symbolic ghosts would largely fall out of common usage by the Tudor period.
There were some reported cases of ghostly armies, fighting battles at night in the forest, or in the remains of anIron Age hillfort, as atWandlebury, near Cambridge, England. Living knights were sometimes challenged to single combat by phantom knights, which vanished when defeated.[18]
One of the more recognizable ghosts inEnglish literature is theshade of Hamlet's murdered father in Shakespeare'sThe Tragical History ofHamlet, Prince of Denmark. InHamlet, it is the ghost who demands thatPrince Hamlet investigate his "murder most foul" and seek revenge upon his usurping uncle,King Claudius. In Shakespeare'sMacbeth, the murderedBanquo returns as a ghost to the dismay of the title character.
InEnglish Renaissance theater, ghosts were often depicted in the garb of the living and even in armor, as with the ghost of Hamlet's father. Armor, being out of date by the time of the Renaissance, gave the stage ghost a sense of antiquity.[19] But the sheeted ghost began to gain ground on stage in the 19th century because an armored ghost could not satisfactorily convey the requisite spookiness: it clanked and creaked, and had to be moved about by complicated pulley systems or elevators. These clanking ghosts being hoisted about the stage became objects of ridicule as they became clichéd stage elements. Ann Jones and Peter Stallybrass, inRenaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory, point out, “In fact, it is as laughter increasingly threatens the Ghost that he starts to be staged not in armor but in some form of 'spirit drapery'.” An interesting observation by Jones and Stallybrass is that
...at the historical point at which ghosts themselves become increasingly implausible, at least to an educated elite, to believe in them at all it seems to be necessary to assert their immateriality, their invisibility. ... The drapery of ghosts must now, indeed, be as spiritual as the ghosts themselves. This is a striking departure both from the ghosts of the Renaissance stage and from the Greek and Roman theatrical ghosts upon which that stage drew. The most prominent feature of Renaissance ghosts is precisely their gross materiality. They appear to us conspicuously clothed.
Ghosts figured prominently in traditional British ballads of the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly the “Border ballads” of the turbulentborder country between England and Scotland. Ballads of this type includeThe Unquiet Grave,The Wife of Usher's Well, andSweet William's Ghost, which feature the recurring theme of returning dead lovers or children. In the balladKing Henry, a particularly ravenous ghost devours the king's horse and hounds before forcing the king into bed. The king then awakens to find the ghost transformed into a beautiful woman.[20]
One of the key early appearances by ghosts in a gothic tale wasThe Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole in 1764.[21]
Washington Irving's short storyThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), based on an earlier German folktale, features aHeadless Horseman. It has been adapted for film and television many times, such asSleepy Hollow, a successful 1999 feature film.[22]
The "classic" ghost story arose during the Victorian period, and included authors such asM. R. James,Sheridan Le Fanu,Violet Hunt, andHenry James. Classic ghost stories were influenced by thegothic fiction tradition, and contain elements of folklore and psychology. M. R. James summed up the essential elements of a ghost story as, “Malevolence and terror, the glare of evil faces, ‘the stony grin of unearthly malice', pursuing forms in darkness, and 'long-drawn, distant screams', are all in place, and so is a modicum of blood, shed with deliberation and carefully husbanded...”[23]
Famous literary apparitions from this period are the ghosts ofA Christmas Carol, in whichEbenezer Scrooge is helped to see the error of his ways by the ghost of his former colleagueJacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come.
Oscar Wilde's comedyThe Canterville Ghost has been adapted for film and television on several occasions. Henry James'sThe Turn of the Screw has also appeared in a number of adaptations, notably the filmThe Innocents,Benjamin Britten's operaThe Turn of the Screw and the Netflix miniseriesThe Haunting of Bly Manor.
Oscar Telgmann's operaLeo, the Royal Cadet (1885) includesJudge's Song about a ghost at theRoyal Military College of Canada inKingston, Ontario.[24]
In the United States, prior to and during the First World War, folkloristsOlive Dame Campbell andCecil Sharp collected ballads from the people of the Appalachian Mountains, which included ghostly themes such asThe Wife of Usher's Well,The Suffolk Miracle,The Unquiet Grave, andThe Cruel Ship's Carpenter. The theme of these ballads was often the return of a dead lover. These songs were variants of traditional Anglo-Scottish ballads handed down by generations of mountaineers descended from the people of the Anglo-Scottish border region.[25]
TheChild balladSweet William's Ghost (1868) recounts the story of a ghost returning to beg a woman to free him from his promise to marry her, as he obviously cannot being dead. Her refusal would mean his damnation. This reflects a popular British belief that the dead haunted their lovers if they took up with a new love without some formal release.[26]The Unquiet Grave expresses a belief found in various locations over Europe: ghosts can stem from the excessive grief of the living, whose mourning interferes with the dead's peaceful rest.[27]
Professional parapsychologists and "ghost hunters", such asHarry Price, active in the 1920s and 1930s, andPeter Underwood, active in the 1940s and 1950s, published accounts of their experiences with ostensibly true ghost stories such as Price'sThe Most Haunted House in England, and Underwood'sGhosts of Borley.
Children's benevolent ghost stories became popular, such asCasper the Friendly Ghost, created in the 1930s and appearing in comics,animated cartoons, and eventually a1995 feature film.
Noël Coward's playBlithe Spirit, later made into afilm, places a more humorous slant on the phenomenon of haunting of individuals and specific locations.
With the advent of motion pictures and television,screen depictions of ghosts became common, and spanned a variety of genres; the works of Shakespeare, Dickens and Wilde have all been made into cinematic versions. Novel-length tales have been difficult to adapt to cinema, although that ofThe Haunting of Hill House toThe Haunting in 1963 is an exception.[21]
Sentimental depictions during this period were more popular in cinema than horror, and include the 1947 filmThe Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which was later adapted to television with a successful 1968–70TV series.[21] Genuinepsychological horror films from this period include 1944'sThe Uninvited, and 1945'sDead of Night.
The 1970s saw English-language screen depictions of ghosts diverge into distinct genres of the romantic and horror. A common theme in the romantic genre from this period is the ghost as a benign guide or messenger, often with unfinished business, such as 1989'sField of Dreams, the 1990 filmGhost, and the 1993 comedyHeart and Souls.[28] In the horror genre, 1980'sThe Fog, and theA Nightmare on Elm Street series of films from the 1980s and 1990s are notable examples of the trend for the merging of ghost stories with scenes of physical violence.[21]
Popularised in such films as the 1984 comedyGhostbusters,ghost hunting became a hobby for many who formed ghost hunting societies to explore reportedly haunted places. The ghost hunting theme has been featured inreality television series, such asGhost Adventures,Ghost Hunters,Ghost Hunters International,Ghost Lab,Most Haunted andA Haunting. It is also represented in children's television by such programs asThe Ghost Hunter andGhost Trackers. Ghost hunting also gave rise to multiple guidebooks to haunted locations, and ghost hunting "how-to" manuals.
The 1990s saw a return to classic "gothic" ghosts, whose dangers were more psychological than physical. Examples of films from this period include 1999'sThe Sixth Sense and 2001'sThe Others.[29][30]
According to the Gallup Poll News Service, belief in haunted houses, ghosts, communication with the dead, and witches had an especially steep increase over the 1990s in the United States.[31] A 2005 Gallup poll found that about 32 percent of Americans believe in ghosts.[32]
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