Shakespeare's Arguments With History

by Knowles, Ronald

• ISBN13: 9780333970218
• ISBN10: 0333970217
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-08
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

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. Knowles shows how analysis of arguments of speech and action take us to the core of the plays, in which Shakespeare interrogates the nature of political morality and truth as grounded in the history of what men do and say.

Author Biography

Ronald Knowles is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Reading.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Shakespeare and Argument

1 & 2 Henry VI

3 Henry VI and Richard III

Richard II

1 & 2 Henry IV

Henry V

Julius Caesar

Antony and Cleopatra

Coriolanus

Troilus and Cressida