ABSTRACT
The relationship between Thomas Nashe and Christopher Marlowe is complicated. Parker shows that a concern with effeminacy and loss of masculine vigour was especially evident in England. Charles Nicholl confirms that the date of composition of 'Choise of Valentines' is uncertain. The production of a strictly controlled cultural image for England and her queen was attempted under Elizabeth. There is a 'self-censorship' based on the potentially slanderous nature of a poem. This sexual significance bound up with the concept of pilgrimage nevertheless hints at the corruption that is to follow. Ovid's Corinna's disappointment is caused by anxiety of other people's perception of the failure. But his main concern is the lover-shepherd Tomalin. Court wits, including Etherege, Rochester and Behn then respond to French impotency texts produced in the middle years of the seventeenth century. Certain tropes appearing in Cavalier verse from early decades establish an important context for the reappearance of the impotency poem following Restoration of the monarchy.
