Shakespeare and Advertising

The thesis concerns the contemporary use of Shakespeare’s works and of his figure as a collection of themes and scenes for advertising campaigns. The intertextual net stemming from Shakespeare’s works covers many different fields from literature and theatre to film and television. The number of reproductions of the Bard’s works is extremely high, ranging from the more faithful ones to mere quotations. However, the relationship of Shakespeare and advertising has been neglected and very little critical research exists on this subject. The thesis aims at presenting significant examples of the use made by advertising both of Shakespeare’s works and of his figure which, as the thesis will show, has acquired a mythical stature epitomising commonly shared concepts. The thesis will try to elucidate the strategies developed in advertising communication and the relation between the theatrical and literary medium with the visual and audio-visual one of advertising. Moreover, the constantly changing relationship between high culture and popular culture will be further analysed in the light of the thesis’ subject, in order to demonstrate that this relationship is not a degrading one but that popular culture can produce new and culturally valid meanings. The exchange between advertising and Shakespeare, indeed, inevitably creates new meaning enriching both the source and the target texts. The thesis will focus on the advertising formation and communication, on the linguistic and psychological strategies inherent to the highly persuasive messages. The creation of a wide intertextual net – not only linking advertisements and commercials but also the latter with Shakespearean adaptations and with Shakespearean works – will be described in order to give an account of the highly complex potential significance of the case studies taken into consideration. The thesis will consider advertisements and commercials concerning the figure of Shakespeare, such as Someone has been on the Shakesbeer and his plays, in particular Romeo and Juliet, Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Tempest. The project inserts itself in a critical space lacking a thorough development and elucidation of the relationship between Shakespeare and Advertising, due to the consideration of the latter as a lower cultural production, thus often neglected because of its principally commercial aim. The thesis aims at giving an account of the use of Shakespeare in the contemporary communication which so highly affects our way of thinking and, ultimately, of behaving in the present-day scenario.