ABSTRACT
This chapter explains a few preliminary observations about both of Isabetta Coreglia’s pastoral dramas, Dori and Erindo il fido, with regard to their respective paratexts. It examines both the honorary verse that accompanies Coreglia’s Dori and the Erindo’s dedicatory letter in an attempt to discover more about an author whose biography remains quite mysterious. The chapter provides a detailed critical account of Dori alongside the author’s published collection of poetry, and against the backdrop of the male canon and an incipient female-authored tradition; that tradition includes Barbara Torelli, Maddalena Campiglia, Leonora Bernardi, and Valeria Miani. In Coreglia’s Dori, the world that stands in opposition to that of the court is not Arcadia, but rather one that both partakes of and yet is unlike the one exposed for calumny and other ills. Coreglia’s contribution is clearly not on the same scale given the brevity of her compositions, however, it is important to note that she belongs to a female-authored tradition.
