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There is widespread belief in Ghosts in English-speaking cultures, where ghosts are manifestations of the spirits of the dead. The beliefs may date back to animism or ancestor worship before the introduction of Christianity. The concept is a perennial theme in the literature and arts of English-speaking countries.

Terminology

Template:Merge-section

The English word ghost continues Old English gást, from a hypothetical Common Germanic *gaistaz. It is common to West Germanic, but lacking in North and East Germanic (the equivalent word in Gothic is ahma, Old Norse has andi m., önd f.). The pre-Germanic form was *ghoisdo-s, apparently from a root denoting "fury, anger" reflected in Old Norse geisa "to rage." The Germanic word is recorded as masculine only, but likely continues a neuter s-stem. The original meaning of the Germanic word would thus have been an animating principle of the mind, in particular capable of excitation and fury (compare óðr). In Germanic paganism, "Germanic Mercury," and the later Odin, was at the same time the conductor of the dead and the "lord of fury" leading the Wild Hunt.

Besides denoting the human spirit or soul, both of the living and the deceased, the Old English word is used as a synonym of Latin spiritus also in the meaning of "breath, blast" from the earliest attestations (9th century). It could also denote any good or evil spirit, i.e. angels and demons; the Anglo-Saxon gospel refers to the demonic possession of Matthew 12:43 as se unclæna gast. Also from the Old English period, the word could denote the spirit of God, viz. the "Holy Ghost." The now prevailing sense of "the soul of a deceased person, spoken of as appearing in a visible form" only emerges in Middle English (14th century). The modern noun does, however, retain a wider field of application, extending on one hand to soul, spirit," vital principle, mind or psyche, 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 synonym spook is a Dutch loanword, akin to Low German spôk (of uncertain etymology); it entered the English language via the United States in the 19th century.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] Alternative words in modern usage include spectre (from Latin spectrum), the Scottish wraith (of obscure origin), phantom (via French ultimately from Greek phantasma, compare fantasy) and apparition. The term shade in classical mythology translates Greek σκιά,^[6] or Latin umbra,^[7] in reference to the notion of spirits in the Greek 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 term poltergeist is a German word, literally a "noisy ghost," for a spirit said to manifest itself by invisibly moving and influencing objects.^[10]

Wraith is a Scottish dialectal 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 verb writhe was the etymology favored by J. R. R. Tolkien.^[11] Tolkien's use of the word in the naming of the creatures known as the Ringwraiths has influenced later usage in fantasy literature. Bogie is an Ulster Scots term for a ghost, and appears in Scottish poet John Mayne's Hallowe'en in 1780.^[12]^[13]

A revenant 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 a fetch, the visible ghost or spirit of a person yet alive.

English Middle Ages

Medieval ghosts in English-speaking cultures were more substantial than ghosts described in the Victorian age, and there are accounts of ghosts 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.^[14]

There were some reported cases of ghostly armies, fighting battles at night in the forest, or in the remains of an Iron Age hillfort, as at Wandlebury, near Cambridge, England. Living knights were sometimes challenged to single combat by phantom knights, which vanished when defeated.^[15]

The Child ballad Sweet 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.^[16] 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.^[17]

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.^[18] A 2005 Gallup poll found that about 32 percent of Americans believe in ghosts.^[19]

Tudor period

One of the more recognizable ghosts in English literature is the shade of Hamlet's murdered father in Shakespeare’s The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. In Hamlet, it is the ghost who demands that Prince Hamlet investigate his "murder most foul" and seek revenge upon his usurping uncle, King Claudius. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the murdered Banquo returns as a ghost to the dismay of the title character.

In English 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 Rennaissance, gave the stage ghost a sense of antiquity.^[20] 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, in Renaissance 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 Rennaissance stage and from the Greek and Roman theatrical ghosts upon which that stage drew. The most prominent feature of Rennaissance ghosts is precisely their gross materiality. They appear to us conspicuously clothed.

Stuart and Georgian periods

Ghosts figured prominently in traditional British ballads of the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly the “Border Ballads” of the turbulent border country between England and Scotland. Ballads of this type include The Unquiet Grave, The Wife of Usher's Well, and Sweet William's Ghost, which feature the recurring theme of returning dead lovers or children. In the ballad King 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.^[21]

One of the key early appearances by ghosts in a gothic tale was The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole in 1764.^[22]

Washington Irving's short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), based on an earlier German folktale, features a Headless Horseman. It has been adapted for film and television many times, such as Sleepy Hollow, a successful 1999 feature film.^[23]

Victorian and Edwardian periods (1840 to 1920)

The “classic” ghost story arose during the Victorian period, and included authors such as M. R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu, Violet Hunt, and Henry James. Classic ghost stories were influenced by the gothic 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...”^[24]

Famous literary apparitions from this period are the ghosts of A Christmas Carol, in which Ebenezer Scrooge is helped to see the error of his ways by the ghost of his former colleague Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come.

Oscar Wilde's comedy The Canterville Ghost has been adapted for film and television on several occasions. Henry James's The Turn of the Screw has also appeared in a number of adaptations, notably the film The Innocents and Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw.

Oscar Telgmann's opera Leo, the Royal Cadet (1885) includes Judge's Song about a ghost at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario.^[25]

In the United States, prior to and during the First World War, folklorists Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil Sharp collected ballads from the people of the Appalachian Mountains, which included ghostly themes such as The Wife of Usher's Well, The Suffolk Miracle, The Unquiet Grave, and The Cruel Ship's Carpenter. The theme of these ballads was often the return of a dead lover. These songs were variants of traditional British ballads handed down by generations of mountaineers descended from the people of the Anglo-Scottish border region.^[26]

Modern Era (1920 to 1970)

Template:Merge-section Professional parapsychologists and “ghosts hunters”, such as Harry Price, active in the 1920s and 1930s, and Peter Underwood, active in the 1940s and 1950s, published accounts of their experiences with ostensibly true ghost stories such as Price's The Most Haunted House in England, and Underwood's Ghosts of Borley.

Children’s benevolent ghost stories became popular, such as Casper the Friendly Ghost, created in the 1930s and appearing in comics, animated cartoons, and eventually a 1995 feature film.

Noël Coward's play Blithe Spirit, later made into a film, 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 of The Haunting of Hill House to The Haunting in 1963 is an exception.^[22]

Sentimental depictions during this period were more popular in cinema than horror, and include the 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which was later adapted to television with a successful 1968-70 TV series.^[22] Genuine psychological horror films from this period include 1944's The Uninvited, and 1945's Dead of Night.

Post-modern (1970-present)

Template:Merge-section 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's Field of Dreams, the 1990 film Ghost, and the 1993 comedy Heart and Souls.^[27] In the horror genre, 1980's The Fog, and the A 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.^[22]

Popularised in such films as the 1984 comedy Ghostbusters, ghost hunting became a hobby for many who formed ghost hunting societies to explore reportedly haunted places. The ghost hunting theme has been featured in reality television series, such as Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International, Ghost Lab, Most Haunted and A Haunting. It is also represented in children's television by such programs as The Ghost Hunter and Ghost 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's The Sixth Sense and 2001's The Others.

References

^ OED
^ Askoxford.com. Retrieved 2009-05-12.
^ Mencken, H. L. (1936, repr. 1980). The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States (4th edition). New York: Knopf, p. 108.
^ Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, spook.
^ Webster's New World College Dictionary (4th edition), Wiley, spook.
^ Liddell & Scott entry
^ Lewis & Short
^ Dictionary of American Regional English, Belknap Press, 1985
^ Joseph M. Flora, Lucinda Hardwick MacKethan, Todd W. Taylor, The Companion to Southern Literature, Louisiana State University Press, 2001, pg. 304.
^ Daniel Cohen (1 January 1984). The encyclopedia of ghosts. Dodd, Mead. pp. 137–156. ISBN 9780396083085. Retrieved 23 September 2010.
^ Liz Milner. "Tom Shippey, J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001)". greenmanreview.com. Retrieved 2009-01-04.
^ Robert Chambers The life and works of Robert Burns, Volume 1 Lippincott, Grambo & co., 1854
^ Ulster Scots - Words and Phrases:"Bogie" BBC Retrieved December 18, 2010
^ Finucane, pp. 83-84.
^ Finucane, pg. 79.
^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 2, p 227, Dover Publications, New York 1965
^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 2, p 234, Dover Publications, New York 1965
^ Newport F, Strausberg M. 2001. "Americans' belief in psychic and paranormal phenomena is up over last decade," Gallup Poll News Service. 8 June "Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding-Public Knowledge About S&T: Belief in Pseudoscience", Chapter 7 of Science and Engineering Indicators 2004, National Science Board, National Science Foundation; Science and Engineering Indicators 2006, National Science Board, National Science Foundation.
^ Lyons, Linda (July 12, 2005). "One-Third of Americans Believe Dearly May Not Have Departed". Gallup Polls. Retrieved 2010-11-28. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
^ Ann Jones & Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
^ Helen Child Sargent & George Lyman Kittredge, English and Scottish Popular Ballads edited from the Collection by Francis James Child, Houghton Mifflin: New York, 1904.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Newman, pg. 135.
^ Sleepy Hollow at Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 29 January 2009.
^ M. R. James. "Some Remarks on Ghost Stories," The Bookman, December 1929.
^ Leo, the Royal cadet, Archive.org
^ Olive Dame Campbell & Cecil James Sharp, English Folk Songs From The Southern Appalachians, G. Putnam's Sons: New York, 1917
^ Chanko, Kenneth M. (August 8, 1993). "FILM; When It Comes to the Hereafter, Romance and Sentiment Rule". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-29.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[File:A_Magician_by_Edward_Kelly.jpg|right|thumb|[[John Dee]] and [[Edward Kelley]] invoking the spirit of a deceased person (engraving from the ''Astrology'' by [[Ebenezer Sibly]], 1806).]]
 There is widespread belief in '''Ghosts in English-speaking cultures''', where [[ghost]]s are manifestations of the spirits of the dead. The beliefs may date back to [[animism]] or [[ancestor worship]] before the introduction of Christianity. The concept is a perennial theme in the literature and arts of English-speaking countries.
 ==Terminology==
+{{duplication}}
+{{merge-section|Ghost#Terminology}}
 {{See|spirit|soul (spirit)|anima|genius (mythology)|Geist}}
@@ Line 27: / Line 30: @@
 A [[Revenant (folklore)|''revenant'']] 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 a  [[Fetch (folklore)|fetch]], the visible ghost or spirit of a person yet alive.
+==English Middle Ages==
-==History==
+{{split-section}}
 [[File:Henry Fuseli rendering of Hamlet and his father's Ghost.JPG|thumb|250px|"[[Hamlet]] and his father's ghost" by [[Henry Fuseli]] (1780s drawing). The ghost is wearing stylized [[plate armour]] in 17th century style, including a [[morion (helmet)|morion]] type helmet and [[tassets]]. Depicting ghosts as wearing armour, to suggest a sense of antiquity, was common in [[Elizabethan theater]].]]
 Medieval ghosts in English-speaking cultures were more substantial than ghosts described in the [[Victorian era|Victorian age]], and there are accounts of ghosts 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.<ref>Finucane, pp. 83-84.</ref>
@@ Line 36: / Line 40: @@
 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.<ref>Newport F, Strausberg M. 2001. "Americans' belief in psychic and paranormal phenomena is up over last decade," Gallup Poll News Service. 8 June <!--year?-->[http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/c7/c7s2.htm#c7s2l5 "Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding-Public Knowledge About S&T: Belief in Pseudoscience"], Chapter 7 of ''Science and Engineering Indicators 2004'', National Science Board, National Science Foundation; ''Science and Engineering Indicators 2006'', National Science Board, National Science Foundation.</ref> A 2005 Gallup poll found that about 32 percent of Americans believe in ghosts.<ref name=gallup>{{cite web|url=http://www.gallup.com/poll/17275/onethird-americans-believe-dearly-may-departed.aspx |title=One-Third of Americans Believe Dearly May Not Have Departed |accessdate=2010-11-28 |last=Lyons |first=Linda |date=July 12, 2005 |publisher=[[The_Gallup_Organization#Gallup_Poll|''Gallup Polls'']]}}</ref>
+===Tudor period===
-==Depiction in the arts==
 [[Image:Scrooges third visitor-John Leech,1843.jpg|right|thumb|19th century [[etching]] by [[John Leech (caricaturist)|John Leech]] of the [[Ghost of Christmas Present]] as depicted in [[Charles Dickens]]' ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'']]
-===Renaissance to Romanticism (1500 to 1840)===
 One of the more recognizable ghosts in [[English literature]] is the [[King Hamlet|shade of Hamlet's murdered father]] in Shakespeare’s ''The Tragical History of [[Hamlet, Prince of Denmark]].''  In ''Hamlet'', it is the ghost who demands that [[Prince Hamlet]] investigate his "murder most foul" and seek revenge upon his usurping uncle, [[King Claudius]].  In Shakespeare’s ''[[Macbeth]]'', the murdered [[Banquo]] returns as a ghost to the dismay of the title character.
@@ Line 48: / Line 51: @@
 {{quote|...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 Rennaissance stage and from the Greek and Roman theatrical ghosts upon which that stage drew. The most prominent feature of Rennaissance ghosts is precisely their gross materiality. They appear to us conspicuously clothed.}}
+==Stuart and Georgian periods==
 Ghosts figured prominently in traditional British ballads of the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly the “[[Border ballads|Border Ballads]]” of the turbulent [[border country]] between England and Scotland.  Ballads of this type include ''[[The Unquiet Grave]]'', ''[[The Wife of Usher's Well]]'', and ''[[Sweet William's Ghost]]'', which feature the recurring theme of returning dead lovers or children.  In the ballad ''[[King Henry (song)|King 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.<ref>Helen Child Sargent & George Lyman Kittredge, ''English and Scottish Popular Ballads edited from the Collection by Francis James Child'', Houghton Mifflin: New York, 1904.</ref>
@@ Line 54: / Line 58: @@
 [[Washington Irving]]'s [[short story]] ''[[The Legend of Sleepy Hollow]]'' (1820), based on an earlier German folktale, features a [[Headless Horseman]].  It has been adapted for film and television many times, such as ''[[Sleepy Hollow (film)|Sleepy Hollow]]'', a successful 1999 feature film.<ref name="sleepyhollow">[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=sleepyhollow.htm Sleepy Hollow] at [[Box Office Mojo]]. Retrieved 29 January 2009.</ref>
-===Victorian/Edwardian (1840 to 1920)===
+===Victorian and Edwardian periods (1840 to 1920)===
 [[File:Pyle pirates ghost.jpg|thumb|The ghost of a pirate, from [[Howard Pyle]]'s ''Book of Pirates'' (1903).]]
 The “classic” ghost story arose during the Victorian period, and included authors such as [[M. R. James]], [[Sheridan Le Fanu]], [[Violet Hunt]], and [[Henry James]].  Classic ghost stories were influenced by the [[gothic 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...”<ref>M. R. James. "Some Remarks on Ghost Stories," The Bookman, December 1929.</ref>
@@ Line 67: / Line 71: @@
 ===Modern Era (1920 to 1970)===
+{{duplication}}
+{{merge-section|Ghost}}
 Professional parapsychologists and “ghosts hunters”, such as [[Harry Price]], active in the 1920s and 1930s, and [[Peter Underwood]], active in the 1940s and 1950s, published accounts of their experiences with ostensibly true ghost stories such as Price's ''[[Borley Rectory|The Most Haunted House in England]]'', and Underwood's ''[[Borley Rectory|Ghosts of Borley]]''.
@@ Line 78: / Line 84: @@
 ===Post-modern (1970-present)===
+{{duplication}}
+{{merge-section|Ghost}}
 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's ''[[Field of Dreams]]'', the 1990 film ''[[Ghost (film)|Ghost]]'', and the 1993 comedy ''[[Heart and Souls]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE3DE1339F93BA3575BC0A965958260|title=FILM; When It Comes to the Hereafter, Romance and Sentiment Rule|last=Chanko|first=Kenneth M.|date=August 8, 1993|work=The New York Times|accessdate=2009-01-29}}</ref>  In the horror genre, 1980's ''[[The Fog]]'', and the ''[[A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise)|A 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.<ref name="Newman, pg. 135"/>