HAMLET AND THE DAEMONS:

AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF THE GHOST AND ITS MISSION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

by

Raymond Nighan, Ph.D.

Foreword

To write about Hamlet is presumptuous. Most claim the definitive interpretation, or at least
hope posterity will agree. The volume of criticism overwhelms, but "once more unto the
breach" I want to go, hoping that readers will not evoke Pope's admonition,

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,

Much fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.

(Essay on Criticism, ll.309-310)

Any investigation that wishes to harvest "fruit of sense" must begin with the ghost. Dover
Wilson is right in terming Hamlet's visitor the "linchpin," but the history of critical opinion
regarding its origin has been diverse and conflicting. Generally, critics have opted for a
Purgatorial ghost: Bradley speaks of "...a soul come from Purgatory," (1) Lily Campbell
believes "Shakespeare has pictured a ghost from Purgatory according to all the tests
possible," but adds, "Shakespeare chose rather to throw out suggestions which might satisfy
those members of his audience who followed any one of the three schools of thought on the
subject." (2). G. Wilson Knight fuses Purgatorial origin with ambiguity: "With exquisite
aptness the poet has placed him, not in heaven or hell, but purgatory," adding "It is neither
'good' nor bad', True its effects are mostly evil." (3) In another work he notes, "The ghost
may or may not have,., been a 'goblin damned': it certainly was no 'spirit of health,' (4)
Wilson terms his 'linchpin' as Catholic: "...the Ghost is Catholic: he comes from
Purgatory."(5)

A flurry of critical opinion began, however, in 1951 when Roy Battenhouse argued, "The
ghost, then, does not come from a Catholic Purgatory, but from an afterward exactly suited to
fascinate the imagination and understanding of the humanist intellectual of the Renaissance."
By that he meant, "...the purgatory of the Ancients, or their hell...since all are Hell from a
Christian point of view: an inhabitant of any one of them is a "damned" spirit...(6) The battle
was joined. I. J. Semper's rebuttal warned that the tradition of critical commentary supported
a Purgatorial spirit as best articulated by Wilson's beliefs.(7) Robert West argued in "King
Hamlet's Ambiguous Ghost," published four years later, that the ghost "...leaves us where all
living men must stand in relation to that country: weighted with its awe and terror and its
uncertainties buffeted by conflicting theories..."(8) Harry Levine likewise endorsed the play
as written in a "...grammar of doubt." (9) Sister Mariam Joseph's article confirmed a
Purgatorial ghost: "...the abode of the ghost and his character fit descriptions of a purgatorial
ghost in both doctrine and popular legend." (10)
More recent scholarship of course has not been silent. Eleanor Prosser's Hamlet and Revenge
(1971) articulates a view of the ghost very much consistent with my own, noting "...the
command [of the ghost] to murder is as malign as we sense it to be, and Hamlet is responsible
for his descent into savagery." (11). She of course argues for a non-purgatorial ghost. In
contrast, Stephen Greenblatt's Hamlet and Purgatory (2001), citing Medieval and
Renaissance texts plus plays that feature ghosts including: A Midsummer Night's Dream,
Richard III, and Julius Caesar, concludes the ghost is not from hell. Its injunction to be
remembered, for example, is predicated on the growing Protestant assault on Purgatory. (12).
Eissler's Discourse on Hamlet and Hamlet asserts the rather paradoxical thesis that the ghost
is purgatorial, but "...neither expresses the slightest sign of pity, love, or affection for his
sown nor mentions the son's claim to the throne, but rather imposes on him a demand that is
couched exclusively in terms of the father's own self-interest." (13). Certainly that view
implies private revenge, making the ghost non-Purgatorial. Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The
Invention of the Human argues that whatever sociologists, theologians, psychologists or
psychiatrists mean by personality comes from Shakespeare: to wit he invented the very
concept. Bloom sees Hamlet's prodigious intellect as transcendent; he is his own "ironist,"
rendering the play's Protestant or Catholic perspective therefore moot. He does stipulate,
however, that Shakespeare's father died a Catholic, (14) a point made by Greenblatt to sustain
his purgatorial thesis.

And so it goes. I agree with Levin that irony pervades the play, but that the "grammar of
doubt" can and must be resolved in favor of a malignant ghost not from a pagan hell, but
from the Christian one sent by God to test Hamlet's faith and courage by trying to damn his
soul. This reading helps to define Hamlet's irony by viewing it as an outgrowth and
continuation of Medieval moral plays such as Everyman. Further a malevolent spirit explains
some of the play's most baffling and enigmatic questions the answers to which refute
previously held axioms: affirm several metaphysical primaries without which meaning is
impaired.

Refuted are the contentions that Hamlet ia a tragedy of excessive reflection as Coleridge
thought. Hamlet is certainly one of Shakespeare's most dynamic protagonists, and any
procrastination may be explained when the ghost's nature is understood. Likewise and as a
corollary, Hamlet is not melancholic as seen when his behavior is studied according to
Burton's understanding of the humor.

Hamlet affirms that Shakespeare well understood the dramatic contexts of Medieval
antecedents to Renaissance tragedy, and it does not demean the play to view it as a
sophisticated morality play exploring the mystery of a Divine Providence that allows evil to
flourish in the macrocosm and microcosm for a greater good. Such an interpretation must be
based on a malevolent ghost and the irony involved in its operation in the macrocosm and
microcosm.

Structurally, Shakespeare's familiarity with Renaissance Daemonological traditions and

beliefs and cosmological systems permitted him to construct a metaphysical subplot based on
an analogy:

Claudius: Laertes : : Ghost : Hamlet.

Although not a perfect correlation since Claudius has some redeeming qualities, the
correspondence is sufficiently valid to warrant the assumption that the former is a
microcosmic dramatization of a malignant macrocosm. By validating the presence of a
malignant ghost, two important 'problems are solved: the question of Hamlet's madness and
his relationship to Ophelia and Gertrude. If Hamlet be mad, the condition is aggravated and
perhaps initiated by the ghost as Burton's analysis proves. Further, the madness explains his
love - hate relationship to Gertrude and Ophelia, The ghost participates by commanding
Hamlet to revenge while leaving his mother to heaven because it knows that is the one
mission he cannot ignore. The dialectical tension thus created makes madness almost
inevitable.

To be kept in mind of course is that Hamlet remains art rather than a supernatural tract.
Shakespeare was not a theologian Consequently this study initially considers structure and
language patterns as they are Shakespeare's means of dramatizing malignancy. Extensive
citations from primary sources are provided insofar as they are not generally available or
have been too infrequently applied to the play, The text used is the Arden Edition, edited by
Harold Jerkins, together with the Variorum, edited by Howard Furness. Quotations from
other Shakespeare play are taken from: Shakespeare: The Complete Works edited by G.B.
Harrison, (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1952). Citations from Plato are from:
Desmond Lee's translation of The Republic (New York: Penguin Classics, 1987). Linguistic
problems are resolved by the O.E.D., Onions' A Shakespeare Glossary, Schmidt's
Shakespeare Lexicon, and Quotation Dictionary, and Partridge's, Shakespeare's Bawdy, plus
my own interpolations, The conclusions affirmed are my own, and I accept responsibility for
any deficiencies discovered by critics more astute and discriminating

I owe a debt to Donald Cheeseman whose perceptive reading resolved more than one
ambiguity, and to Mel Colvin for his considerable expertise in providing technical assistance.

August, 2001

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