Statecraft has long made use of theater to cultivate soft power, the power of attraction which enables a person, group, or nation to influence others’ decisions and policies. Soft power is developed through cultural capital, including artifacts such as literature, theater, television, and film. Using spectacles to communicate ideas and values, a political entity raises its ability to persuade by alluring other entities. Publications on the use of early modern theater to promote values have focused on statecraft. The topics of such works include the use of plays in diplomacy, the role of royal progressions in national and international politics, and the exploitation of spectacle to build the mythical reputation of monarchs. Yet the soft power of early modern plays operated on a variety of levels on stage and in print. This dissertation discusses the cultivation of attraction to disseminate concepts of elite conduct to domestic audiences – to all spectators and readers – rather than just statespersons.

The introduction of this thesis gives an overview of what soft power is and what it does, why theater can be a source of soft power, what early modern theater theorists said about the influence of theater and comedy, and the concepts of conduct which were most important to early modern elite societies as shown in popular conduct manuals. The following three chapters are close readings of three plays: Giovan Battista Della Porta’s La fantesca, John Lyly’s Galatea, and Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s La dama duende. I demonstrate the methods by which these plays generate soft power, how their carnivalesque mode disrupts social norms to enhance the transmission of concepts to the audience, and how each work emphasizes a certain quality as admirable. Invoking early modern theory, I show the educational uses of comedy and widen the understanding of the application of soft power developed through theater. The close readings provide an extensive look at the many methods of attracting audiences and transmitting concepts to spectators, furnishing methods for analyzing plays individually and creating a basis for more comprehensive studies of the ways in which theater influences the culture of audiences.

INDEX WORDS: Soft power, Comedy, Drama, Theater, Plays, Giovan Battista Della Porta, Giovambattista Della Porta, Giovanni Battista Della Porta, Giambattista Della Porta, John Lyly, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Courtesy, Conduct, Courtesy manuals, Conduct books, Carnivalesque, Festive, Saturnalian, Italian literature, English literature, Spanish literature, Italian theater, English theater, Spanish theater, Early modern literature, Early modern theater, Theater theory, Early modern theater theory, Affect, Instruction, Affability, Grace, Affectation, Sprezzatura, Virtù, Moderation, Discretion, Comparative literature, Pastoral, Capa y espada, Cloak and sword, Cross-dressing, Queer love