SOURCE: Kastan, David Scott. “Nero and the Politics of Nathaniel Lee.” Papers on Language and Literature 13, no. 2 (1977): 125-35.

In the following essay, Kastan argues that Nero is one of the earliest dramas to find fault with the political solutions initiated by the English Restoration.

Many critics of Restoration tragedy have commented on the political dialogue that took place on the London stage following the discovery of the Popish Plot. Surprisingly, however, few have been willing to recognize any significant political content in the drama before 1678. George Whiting summarizes the common opinion when he acknowledges that “the theatres of London were involved in the political activity growing out of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill in the last years of Charles II's reign.”¹ But this assumption, which finds a political concern in Restoration tragedy only after 1678, needs to be reconsidered in light of the intense political sensitivity of...