Fantomina by Eliza Haywood

Biography & Background

• Playwright and journalist
• Provided with a birth date of 1693
• Fantomina = Love in a Maze (1724)
• Fantomina is about a heroine's repeated seductions of the same man, which she achieves by disguising herself as a servant girl, widow, and other figures in order to lure the man called Beauplaisir
• As Fantomina changes her character, she modifies her behavior to align with Beauplaisir's expectations
• Beauplaisir is convinced he has seduced four different women
• About a woman pursuing a man for sex, which has never been done before, really other than in Lanval
• Eliza Haywood was criticized for being racy and overly sexualized 
• Fantomina is a lot like the woman writer as she is caught and punished for her own gender
• Fantomina ought to be young and virginal, but she is out and pursuing sex

Fantomina (Love in a Maze)

Fantomina adopts many disguises in this novella to get the attention of Beauplaisir and the reader. Fantomina is mostly motivated by the attention, performance, and disguises themselves. Fantomina's disguises include:

• Prostitute in a playhouse
• Celia the maid at Beauplaisir's inn
• Mrs. Bloomer the widow
• Incognita (in writing)

Fantomina may be considered pathetic because she becomes pregnant, gets caught, loses at her own game, and is sent away for her actions. Fantomina may be considered empowered because she can be any kind of woman that a man desires. Women of Haywood's social standing were more or less required to marry, so Haywood may be using Fantomina to comment on how satirical upper class life is. At this time, people began to question the conventions of marriage and how it works. Fanomina is a woman who is trying to take what she wants and is really pushing back and asking why she can't have what she wants.

Fantomina is a novella that is in no way a medieval romance. Fantomina, like a knight, is a woman on a quest for what she wants. This novella is a reversal of the roles in a typical medieval romance. Fantomina is a femme fatale in pursuit. 

Both men and women read novels such as Fantomina, but this especially was designed to empower women to take what they want. Men might think Fantomina is pathetic because when a man goes after a woman, it is considered normal, but when a woman goes after what she wants it's bad/different. Fantomina is miming a libertine (a wealthy upper class man who enjoys masquerade and sleeps with a lot of women like a modern player). Fantomina is duping Beauplaisir the whole time in a fight for power type of relationship. 

For punishment, Fantomina is sent to live in a convent by her mother. Due to Fantomina's illegitimate child, Fantomina's mother would typically want her to marry Beauplaisir. Fantomina may have been sent away as a punishment or because her family was ashamed of her. Being put in a monastery is the ultimate punishment for a highly sexed young woman. Finally, Fantomina's mother may have been upset that Fantomina took away her matchmaking power by messing around with Beauplaisir.