ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book opens with an exploration of the dramatic portrayal of idealized female characters from different classes within the overtly moralizing context of Goldoni's plays. Some of the female characters in his comedies are portrayed in a positive light in relation to the cardinal patriarchal virtues of chastity, modesty, and domesticity. The book discovers the dramatic trajectory of these three archetypally eighteenth-century feminine virtues. It begins by situating femininity as a major target of dramatic moralizing in the social and theatrical context within which Goldoni lived and worked. The book continues the examination of female characters, those who appear to occupy either the ambiguous middle ground between 'good' and 'bad', or who are unambiguously 'bad'. It is important to bear in mind Goldoni's conviction that no genuinely bad or evil characters should be allowed stage space, for fear of corrupting the audience.
