ABSTRACT
Heike Ghost is a concept for which there is no referent, no evidence, anywhere, any place, any time in the entire sweep of human experience, yet one that is vital in many cultures and perhaps in every culture since the Upper Palaeolithic Age. The literary critic, conditioned to attend to the special and local features of a text, of an author or of an audience, is likely to attend to incidental inflections of the concept ghost — how one ghost differs from another. The word 'ghost' points the author not only to such an element in the blend but inseparably to an entire network and its cross-space relations. The power of the play depends upon the shiver of doubt that runs through the ghost network. The ghost of Hamlet's father conforms to ghost physics. The living King Hamlet is 'identical' to the object of Hamlet's memory.
