Fantomina, or Love in a Maze

Read this for uni but really enjoyed it.

I'd forgotten that I read this about 3 years ago for an early/modern Brit Lit class. Goes to show you how much you plod through without even giving it so much as a second glance. After re-reading it last week, I can honestly say I'll probably forget having read it once again within a few months. Like a lot of the stuff I'm trudging through this semester, Fantomina is a text that I find really fascinating to talk about with others, but that doesn't wow me on some sort of visceral or long-term lev [...]

My youngest sister was at my apartment while I was reading this. I told her I was reading a somewhat smutty early eighteenth century novel for one of my Master's classes. She then informed me that it couldn't be that smutty, because it was so old. I read her part of it, and her protestations were quelled; she agreed that it was, in fact, smutty. Fantomina is such an interesting piece because it defies the usual conclusions for the female protagonist. Unlike some other novels written during the s [...]

This is ICONIC.

Advice by Fantomina (spoilers):When your man starts to loose interest, create various disguises and start seducing him as other people. You will feel perpetually pissed off because he is cheating on you with well you and spend way too much time on a toxic relationship with a guy who raped you in the first place. Ah well, you’ve got to find something to alleviate the boredom of your aristocratic existence.

this is one of those times that I really don't mind that a professor assigned something rather obscure and even awkward. it's a short read but within the story everything is just kind if overdone to a point that you really can't help but enjoy it somewhat. you may want to blush through parts if it, but life will move on, I guess.

This was such a clever little piece of work that provides a lot of insight into society at the time, especially women's places within it. Highly recommended for those interested in women writers and the emergence of the novel in British society.

Don't let this book's age turn you away: it's a good one. Below are some of the insights I gleaned from the novella when I read it during a college English course.In this work, Eliza Haywood illustrates her interest in disguise as a facilitator of female empowerment. She gives her protagonist great agency at the beginning of the piece, enabling Fantomina to manipulate Beauplaisir by seducing him under the guise of a prostitute. And as the work progresses, Fantomina grows increasingly comfortable [...]

The amatory fiction, exemplified here, is a precursor of the romance novel. A twist on the formulaic genre of the pure maiden seduced and abandoned, amatory fiction is used to highlight themes of promiscuity, women's position in society and sexual empowerment with an undercurrent of sarcasm - as the ending still ends in misery for the protagonist.Once, I read of the absolute amazement when a novel was published in England with dialogue. That's not the case here, and the result is a narration sta [...]

A pantomime of a very strange sort. A young woman of “unaccountable whimsey“ and “wild unaccountable desires” who tricks a man to sleep with her in the guises of a mistress, a country wench, a widow and an incognito. The stupid man fell for it.Eventually, her Mum returns and she isn’t able to be as free and she is pregnant. Had Mum not been there, she couldn’t hide it, so it was discovered. This is a fun and silly story. The man is a fool and the woman a scheming fantasist of the fir [...]

I had to read this for my university class. After learning about Haywood I have a lot of respect for this short read. She created a character that shows all sides of womanhood in that century: She's sneaky and does what she wants. Women didn't always follow the rules. She has the money to do so, implying that the upper class women were the types of women that had this freedom. She appears naive to everyone but actually outwits the man. Beauty is crucial in the era. It's a thought provoking read [...]

La historia es muy pobre en contenido y en estilo. La narración es bastante apresurada, los hechos ocurren demasiado rápido y la autora no se toma ningún tiempo para analizar a su protagonista. Lo que da la impresión de que no se la toma muy en serio. Parece que la historia se escribió con la intención de educar, pero de manera muy cruda y a veces hasta estúpida, a las jóvenes de la época sobre los peligros de una pasión desenfrenada e inconsciente. Es lo único que puedo rescatar de l [...]

Without giving away the entire storyline, "Fantomina" is the story of how the main character, simply known as the Lady, goes on a masquerade of different women in order to continue her relationship with the man she is interested in. Follow along with the different outfits and characters to see how the Lady is able to easily deceive her lover until her charade comes to an end. It's an entertaining read but also an insight into how the lives and relationships of women differed from men.

I LOVED the storyline of this novel, if that's what you like to call it. I'm glad this was assigned for class or else I probably would not have read it one my own. Besides the storyline, everything else seems dull. The writing is "eh" and it is very repetitive. It's only like 50 pages long but halfway through I was ready to finish because of the bad writing. But I did really like reading about all of the "women" and their interactions with the man. It's very interesting concept and it says a lot [...]

3,5

read for class! really fun character to follow

3.5 stars. This was quite funny and ridiculous. This girl did whatever she had to to get the d and I respect that. Go Fantomina!

I found this short read to be rather enjoyable. Not your typical cautionary tale from the Romantic era -I really enjoyed how the narrator exercised her power in a time when women had so little.

Reading this for my Women, Gender & Sexuality class. What a hoot. What an ending :/

A fairly quick read for my university class, Fantomina is an enjoyable proto-novel that focuses on a young women of noble birth exploring the ability to self-fashion and take on different roles in order to prolong the interest of a gentleman she is in love with. It was amusing, and interesting to see some of the characteristics of a novel that were missing this early in the novel-writing stage. For instance. the characters had little depth and did not progress as the story continued, and the dia [...]

WEIRD but surprisingly not dry or boring like you'd expect from prescribed readings. You did good, uni.

Now that was a lighthearted read I did not expect to enjoy this much. I found myself wildly entertained by the heroine’s elaborate means of soliciting her beau. The extensive measures she takes in order to obtain his affection had me chuckling in the subway and getting looks from people. I can see how Haywood’s dozens of amorous fictions found a wide audience and sparked heavy criticism from the male-dominated literary world of the time; her works explore unrestrained female activity and sex [...]

What starts as a game - a high class young lady wondering what it would be like to dress up as a prostitute and receive full blown attention from her male peers without the restraint or consequences to her reputation - ends up as a twisting, scheming hot mess. Determined to keep her lover's attention and adoration after he has grown bored of her, Fantomina disguises herself as a number of different women to recapture Beauplaisir's heart. However, the situation continues to play itself out over a [...]

I read this for university (I'm taking a class on 18th Century Literature) and as with many classic texts they can be a challenge; though isn't that part of why we read them?Its a short and interesting tale of a bored, London society girl. I imagine there were quite a lot of them at the time. Whats rather startling, once you come to realise it, is how she combats her boredom. Quite the little minx, but I can't help feeling Beauplaisir got a little of what he deserved.I read a copy of the origina [...]

This had me snickering in starbucks. A very short and pretty easy read, it's delightful terminology for lust and sex were amusing to me, as were "Fantomina's" antics. Never have I been so delighted by a person's lust an deceit. The narrator's voice was interesting to me, because it dealt, I felt, with what, at least then, would have been fairly serious and inappropriate subject matter in a rather lighthearted manner. The abrupt ending was to my taste, as well. Altogether oddly interesting.

I did find the writing hard to follow at some points as it was very wordy. I found it interesting that it was spoken from the point of view of someone who was completely external and unnected from the events that took place. it was definitely intriguing and I'm glad my literature class set it as a text to be read and studied

Been a while since I've read this, but upon a more thorough and detailed reading, I enjoyed it much more that four years ago. This story is in some ways hilarious, and in others, utterly confounding. How could such a lady get into such shenanigans, and hide herself so well?It's a good story, but alas, will never be a favorite of mine.

2.5Omg this has been a quick read AND a quite fun one, I have to admit. Not my favourite genre (I try to avoid classics as much as possible but hey, this one was a compulsory one so, yeah, not happenning this time) but the storyline was not bad at all, and I actually grew fond of Fantomina and her alter egos.

A wonderful short story for those interested in the "secret histories" that predate "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" by a few centuries. Haywood describes the scandalous guises of a woman head over heels for her beau -- she goes through great lengths to keep him. Romantic and fascinating.

This book was full of misogyny. Anyone who doesn't pick it up while reading the story is clearly missing the point. The moral of this story is that men will always cheat and that women shouldn't pry or they will be punished for it.