The Moral of the Story: Literature and Public Ethics. Edited by Henry T. Edmondson III. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2000. 272p. $75.00 cloth, $24.95 paper. Shakespeare's Political Realism: The English History Plays. By Tim Spiekerman. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 208p. $16.95 paper.

Extract

As their scholarship indicates, Henry Edmondson and Tim Spiekerman share two basic assumptions: There exist certain enduring issues of politics, such as the nature of social justice and the legitimacy of power, and authors of fiction, drama, and poetry who write with knowledge and sensitivity about the human condition often will have something significant to say about them.