Abstract

The present work analyzes some of Calderón’s dramas that deal with the problem of politics and the role of the king. The analysis is focused on both the affects of the king and the affects in general. In addition to that, the dramas are related to a series of political treatises of the same era that also emphasize the function of affects in the field of politics. It is argued that the emphasis on the role of affects in the conception of politics is not a medieval and anti-modern remainder, but a pre-modern attitude that prepares certain figures of political thinking —such as the conception of a general will—, that were to be developed throughout the following centuries.