'From Ghoulies and Ghosties and things that go bump in the Night, Good Lord Preserve us.'From the the soul of the Elizabethan mind, we find revealed in Shakespeare's plays a deep stratum of native lore. A living lore of ghosts, witches, fairy spirits, a strong belief in the existence of the supernatural. They carried charms and mascots, found horror in spilling salt and walking under ladders, and dreaded the thirteenth of Friday. Observations of the habits of men, animals and plants were based upon stories that were more myth that truth. Superstition explianed the changing weather, seasons, phase of life, even sickness and death. Widespread obsession with the supernatural, compelled Shakespeare to adopt the views of the majority. The people who paid the money demanded fairies, ghost, and witches. First in King Richard III and again in Julius Ceasar we find the undeveloped occult themes of ghost and soothsayer but it was not until the tragedies of Hamlet and Macbeth that Shakespeare really got going with his Supernatural themes. This recurring aspect of the supernatural powers make his plays both unpredictable and more interesting by heightening the suspense. Shakespeare skillfully employs the insight and supernatural powers of three witches in Macbeth to intensify the complicated plot structure. These supernatural powers empower Macbeth to kill Duncan, to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. Thus the malefic prophecies of the witches become the impetus for all of the killings in Macbeth where uncontrollable ambition incites to murder and usurpation, until guilt destroys him. Shakespeare's is a world of ghostly revanants, dancing spirits, debauched hags, and sorcerous castaways who actively seek vengeance for the wrongs done them in life. The most important supernatural phenomenon in Macbeth are the witches who represent Macbeth's evil ambitions and aspirations. Macbeth seeks them out at their cave to answer his violent and destructive questions regardless of the nature of the consequence. In the Birnam Wood prophesy the witches add a further unnatural element in the cauldron and by calling up three apparitions as well as Triform Hecate Queen of Witches, Night and the Underworld. The first apparition is Macbeth's own head to be later severed by Macduff. The second apparition falsely prophesies to Macbeth that he can not be harmed by one born of woman. Falsely lulling Macbeth, but Macduff was born of a mother who was dead and a corpse. The third apparition, a child with a crown on his head, represents Malcolm, Duncan¹s son and future King of Scotland. An oft repeated minor plot enhancement is the air-drawn dagger, covered in blood which points Macbeth to his victims. Macbeth finally becomes victim to the delusions of his fevered brain. Not only in Macbeth, do we find prophetic apparitions who make an appearances, but in Hamlet a ghost appears, in the form of Hamlet¹s father. At first the ghost says nothing as it appears to Marcellus and Bernardo, near the guardsmens' post. It is perceived with fear and apprehension, "It harrows me with fear and wonder".It is not until the appearance of Hamlet that the ghost speaks, after Horatio has expressed his fears about Hamlet following it, "What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, or to the dreadful summit of the cliff."Hamlet is not quick to believe the ghost. The spirit that I have seen may be a devil... and perhaps out of my weakness and my melancholy...abuses me to damn me-"The conversation between the ghost and Hamlet serves as a catalyst for Hamlet¹s later uncomfortable actions and provides insight into the turmoil in the introverted Hamlet's mind, whose fatal flaw was hesitation, Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fightingIn both the Tempest and Macbeth, a raging storm foreshadows the horrible event. Before Duncan is brutally murdered by Macbeth, a storm brews outside as the winds howl and "chimneys were blown down, and, as they say, Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death,"The Tempest,' is founded on an account of a shipwreck off the Bermudas. ' Mystery of ' The Tempest ' never yet solved, truth being veiled in allegory and imagery.Less bleak than the tragedies, we find in The Tempest the raging storm once again where Prospero uses Ariel, the former servant of the Moon Woman Sycorax to gain control over the supernatural element to raise storms and command the winds. Ariel the spirit of air is evoked in music, noises, thunder, sounds, and the sweet airs which flood the island as well as flames on the masts of the doomed ship. Even the water spirits and elves of the brooks and streams are called upon to dance with the spirits, about the circle of the Mage Prospero’s cave. Finally Prospero adjures his magic powers, drowns his book and ends in reconciliation and forgiveness of errors. At the end of the play as Prospero rejects magic to return to society and regain his Dukedom. Shakespeare also adds humor to the drama by his use of pathetic fallacy in comedic characters such as the drunken porter in Macbeth. and the two drunkards In The Tempest who engage in tormenting Caliban, a deformed and monstrous slave, calling him names and mocking his appearance "This is some monster of the isle with four legs, who hath got, as I take it, an ague...he's a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat's-leather."Shakespeare's early classic, Midsummer Night's Dream, is a witty romance of fairy magic, and comic low life scenes which gives way to the darker element of tragedy, ultimate fear even amiable death. In 'A Midsummer Night's Dream ' the Fairies have travelled from farthest India ' to Athens, in the personae of Oberon and Titania, with their attendant train, the representatives of the Olympian Gods and Goddesses, who once ruled the destinies of the human race. In the made for Jacobean theater, Cymbeline, Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle, he throws a thunderbolt as the ghosts fall on their knees. In Venus and Adonis, influenced by Ovid's Metamorphoses, the innocent Adonis rejects the sexual advances of Venus. The poem show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust. No study of horror themes would be complete without Shakespeare. In the master of the 'Globe' we have found our plates full and our appetite for the Supernatual slaked. Index Cymbeline The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Macbeth A Midsummer Night's Dream The Tempest Venus and Adonis
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