셰익스피어 사절판 희곡 표지의 광고 홍보적 기능

Abstract

This study analyses Shakespeare’s quarto plays with a special reference to their advertising functions. To attain this goal, the study discusses the general background of print culture in Elizabethan England. The printed text of a book often had to wait for a rather long time in the printer’s house until it was bound upon the order of a buyer. During this time, the printers had to protect the printed materials, so that they used to put an additional blank page on top of the printed pages. However, the number of these materials increased and they thus needed to be differed from each other. Therefore, for each work the printers designed a unique label for the formerly blank protection page, thus creating a label title-page. As time passed, these label title-pages became elaborated with other information and were finally adorned with interesting wood cuts to make them look more beautiful. Later on, the Elizabethan printers and publishers found that these elaborated title pages could be used as an effective tool of advertisement to promote their market sales. The printers wanted to let the readers know where they could buy those plays, thus telling their address and displaying their business insignia. Sometimes, the printers adopted interesting devices of beautiful cuts or designs on the title page so as to make them seem more attractive. This developing process of title pages towards the modern style seems to us a slow and sometimes ridiculous one. But we have to admit that it was a natural result from many experiments conducted by Elizabethan printers to reflect their practical requirements. During his life, Shakespeare was not greatly interested in publishing his plays. There is no doubt that he did not mind the varied styles of title pages for his quarto plays designed by the contemporary printers and/or publishers. He was well aware that some printers freely changed the titles of his plays, or others put their printers’ marks on the title pages, which had no direct relations to the plays proper. Nevertheless, Shakespeare seems to have recognized the general business culture and he allowed the printers to compose the title pages according to their tastes. Shakespeare was never ignorant however of the true meaning of the ling and honeysuckle device used by printer Nicholas Ling on the first and second quarto of Hamlet, a device that had no symbolic relation to the text of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy. It was only a trade mark of the printer which functioned as a means to tell buyers who the printer was. This understanding of the elaborated title pages of Shakespeare’s quarto plays might not satisfy modern readers who have grown accustomed to finding deeper connections between their artwork and the text, yet it is the contention of this author that they were adopted for the promotion of book sales, nothing more.