Argument was the basis of Renaissance education; both rhetoric and dialectic permeated early modern humanist culture, including drama. This study approaches Shakespeare's history plays by analyzing the use of argument in the plays and examining the importance of argument in Renaissance culture.

At the heart of any great work of literature is a story. William Shakespeare's plays are no exception. They tell the stories of kings and queens, of ghosts and witches, of romance and passion. But to get to the stories at the heart of the Bard's plays, the reader must first work through Shakespeare's language, a task often too demanding for younger readers (and for many adults). This new paperback edition brings ten of Shakespeare's greatest plays to life. E. Nesbit, the classic British children's author, shakes off the burdensome complexity of Shakespeare's language and tells the stories at the core of the plays with a generous sprinkle of wit and humor. Her graceful, vivid retellings, written in highly accessible and lucid prose, are the perfect introduction to Shakespeare's work.

The Facts On File Companion to Classical Drama was written for those without any previous introduction to classical studies or the ancient Greek or Latin language.
In this book, classical drama is taken to refer primarily to plays. Written by Greek and Roman authors. Understanding classical drama is a daunting task. Of the thousands of plays written during this period, only about 85 survive in more or less complete form, and though we know the names of some 300 classical playwrights, the surviving 85 plays can be attributed to only eight writers: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Menander, Plautus, Terence, and Seneca.