Beginning with the distinctions between rhetoric and poetry, Harold Toliver examines the interplay of functional speech, assigned the task of moving plots, and poetry's sublime transport to hypothetical or second worlds and their implicit criticism of the worldly possible. The dramatist who works toward a conservative reinstatement of social order is sometimes at odds with the poetic visionary. Juxtaposing Shakespeare and Milton on that matter helps situate them within their respective Elizabethan and Puritan outlooks. - Jacket flap.