ABSTRACT
Thomas Nashe demonstrates the position of a public writer working under the pressures of a literary system. His decision to adapt the impotency poem in a vernacular and more clearly satirical form than Marlowe's translation necessitated a self-censorship. In order to understand the later seventeenth century re-appearance of the English impotency poem from French sources, it is important to establish the context from English literary history. English political matters the development of a Cavalier poetry of libertine wit is significant. The 'Declaration of Breda' demonstrates the way in which Charles mediates his return to the throne. We need not necessarily assume that the king could perceive the implicit attacks that many of Rochester's poems make. The application of the motif of impotence to the turbulent political situation during civil war and regicide attests to the anxieties felt and the pressures exacted on public literary discussion.
