The cult of Shakespeare as a socio cultural phenomenon

The present article is devoted to consideration of a key phenomenon in the evolution of the European civilization terminologically nominated as «The Cult of Shakespeare». The authors give the definition to this phenomenon and consider it as a «philological concept». Applying the thesaurus approach the authors come to a conclusion that since the XVIII century «the Cult of Shakespeare» had set the bases to a number of the all-European cultural phenomena that found their expression in literature, music, fine arts and cinema.