Early Modern Ghost Stories

Module code: EN7407

Creepy, kooky, mysterious or spooky – ghosts, spectres and apparitions haunt the period 1500-1700 and its literature, manifesting themselves in sermons, smash-hit dramas, and investigative ‘scientific’ reports. In this period the understanding of spirits changed dramatically: the Reformation profoundly redrew the lines of communication between living and dead, and towards the end of the period the growing influence of empirical science sparked debates about their reality.

These developments fuelled an extraordinarily creative and innovative surge of works dealing with ghosts, ranging from plays, poetry and pamphlets, to religious works and popular stories. Individual texts will be used to explore the cultural desires and anxieties that shaped these accounts of the supernatural, and the social and political changes that underpinned them.