Ghost character

This article is about non-speaking characters in plays. For fictional ghosts, see Ghost § Depiction in the arts.

A ghost character, in the bibliographic or scholarly study of texts of dramatic literature, is a term for an inadvertent error committed by the playwright in the act of writing. It is a character who is mentioned as appearing on stage, but who does not do anything, and who seems to have no purpose. As Kristian Smidt put it, they are characters that are "introduced in stage directions or briefly mentioned in dialogue who have no speaking parts and do not otherwise manifest their presence". It is generally interpreted as an author's mistake, indicative of an unresolved revision to the text. If the character was intended to appear and say nothing, it is assumed this would be made clear in the playscript.

The term is used in regard to Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, including the works of William Shakespeare, all of which may have existed in different revisions leading to publication. The occurrence of a ghost character in a manuscript may be evidence that the published version of a play was taken by the printer directly from an author's foul papers.

Shakespeare's ghost characters

• Violenta, All's Well That Ends Well, a character who enters with the Widow in act III, scene 5, possibly another daughter of the Widow and sister to Diana.
• Lamprius, Antony and Cleopatra, act I, scene 2. Some editors assume this is the name of the Soothsayer, but the Soothsayer is implied to be Egyptian in act II, scene 3. Lampryas is named in Plutarch as his own grandfather, from whom he got an anecdote about Antony, which is the likely source.
• Rannius, Antony and Cleopatra, also in act I, scene 2
• Lucillius, Antony and Cleopatra, an attendant of Enobarbus in act I, scene 2.
• Beaumont, Henry V. He is one of the casualties in the Battle of Agincourt, noted in act III, scene 5 and listed as a casualty in act IV, scene 8. He is in the stage direction at the beginning of act IV, scene 2, suggesting Shakespeare wanted to develop the character further, but never did.
• Innogen, included in early editions of Much Ado About Nothing, act I, scene 1 and act II, the wife of Leonato.
• Petruchio, Romeo and Juliet, companion of Tybalt at the fight in act III, scene 1, also mentioned as attending the Capulets' banquet in act I, scene 5. Some editions, such as the Oxford/Norton, give him the line "Away, Tybalt", which other editors render as a stage direction. He appears in the 1996 Baz Luhrmann film, played by Carlos Martín Manzo Otálora.
• Mercer, Timon of Athens, a guest at Timon's banquet in act I, scene 1, presumably seeking Timon's patronage. The Norton/Oxford edition adds a stage direction for him to cross stage and exit.

Innogen (Much Ado About Nothing)

See also: Much Ado About Nothing

Modern versions of Much Ado About Nothing open act 1, scene 1 with the stage direction "Enter Leonato, Governor of Messina, Hero his daughter, and Beatrice his niece, with a Messenger." In the first quarto edition (Q1, 1600) however, the stage direction includes, after Leonato, "Innogen his wife". Similarly, in the stage directions for act 2, scene 1, Leonato is followed by "his wife". This Innogen is mentioned nowhere else in the play, and during Leonato's denunciation of Hero in act 4, scene 1, where it would be natural for her mother to speak or act in some fashion, Shakespeare appears to either have forgotten about her or decided that a father—motherless daughter dyad worked better dramatically. As the editors of The Cambridge Shakespeare (1863) put it: "It is impossible to conceive that Hero's mother should have been present during the scenes in which the happiness and honour of her daughter were at issue, without taking a part, or being once referred to."

Other authors

Four characters in John Webster's The White Devil, Christophero, Farnese, Guid-Antonio, and Little Jaques the Moor, have sometimes been referred to as ghost characters because they have no lines in the play.

See also

• Unseen character

Notes and references

References

All references to Shakespeare's plays, unless otherwise specified, are taken from the Folger Shakespeare Library's Folger Digital Editions texts edited by Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Under their referencing system, 3.1.55 means act 3, scene 1, line 55. Prologues, epilogues, stage directions, and other parts of the play that are not a part of character speech in a scene, are referenced using Folger Through Line Number: a separate line numbering scheme that includes every line of text in the play.

Sources

• Boyce, Charles (1990). White, David Allen (ed.). Shakespeare A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Plays, His Poems, His Life and Times, and More. Literary A to Z. Facts on File. ISBN 9780816018055. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Clark, William George; Wright, William Aldis, eds. (1863). The Cambridge Shakespeare. Vol. II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511701207. ISBN 9780511701207 – via Cambridge Core. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
• McEachern, Claire, ed. (2007). Much Ado About Nothing. The Arden Shakespeare, third series. Bloomsbury. doi:10.5040/9781408160220.00000052. ISBN 978-1-9034-3683-7 – via Drama Online Library. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
• Smidt, Kristian (1980). "Shakespeare's absent characters". English Studies. 61 (5). Taylor & Francis: 397–407. doi:10.1080/00138388008598068. eISSN 1744-4217. ISSN 0013-838X. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
• Wells, Stanley (1980). "Editorial Treatment of Foul-Paper Texts: Much Ado about Nothing as Test Case". The Review of English Studies. New Series. 31 (121). Oxford University Press: 1–16. doi:10.1093/res/XXXI.121.1. eISSN 1471-6968. ISSN 0034-6551. JSTOR 514047 – via JSTOR. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)