Meaning Between the Lines

In an advertisement which Heineken, put out a few years ago as part of a themed advertising campaign, it ran a series of ads where a person or part of a person was lifeless, but became reinvigorated when he or she concerned drank a can of Heineken. The slogan ‘Heineken Refreshes the Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach!’ was displayed.
Later in the series of ads they had one where William Wordsworth is trying to compose his famous poem about daffodils. He is pictured sitting by the side of a lake trying, again and again, to write the poem, but always failing to get started. Then he drinks a can of Heineken which he has brought with him and the poem just pours out of the end of his pen: I wander’d lonely as a Cloud …….. and so on.
And the slogan? Heineken Refreshes the Poets Other Beers Cannot Reach!

The pun is obvious enough. It takes a special kind of understanding to appreciate the kind of language used in ads, poetry, drama and discourse.

‘Meaning between the lines', or what the famous 20th century Russian director Stanislawski called the 'sub-text' of plays is something which is often not made explicit, but can be inferred in conversational exchanges. Meaning is essentially produced by the reader, does not reside within the text itself, and is derived from a combination of factors including the formal structure of the text and the contextual circumstances in which it is read. Meaning is plural, not always fixed but is fluid and cannot be pinned down once and for all through a process of analysis.