This volume forms part of the 5 volume set 'Early English Stages 1300-1660'. This set examines the history of the development of dramatic spectacle and stage convention in England from the beginning of the fourteenth century to 1660.

Shakespeare's Dramatic Heritage shows that the drama of Elizabethan and Jacobean England is deeply indebted to the religious drama of the Middle Ages and represents a climax, in secular guise, to mediaeval experiment and achievement rather than a new beginning. This is fully examined in terms of dramatic literature as well as in terms of theatres, stages and production conventions.

The plays studied include: Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale and Marlowe's King Edward II.