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Amatory Fiction. http://www.fabricattic.com/Masks%20T0511290.jpg. “While he thinks to fool me, [he] is himself the only beguiled Person.†Fantomina. http://www.art-connection.de/masken/page/english/venezian.carnival.2.html. Amatory Fiction.
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Amatory Fiction http://www.fabricattic.com/Masks%20T0511290.jpg
“While he thinks to fool me, [he] is himself the only beguiled Person.” Fantomina http://www.art-connection.de/masken/page/english/venezian.carnival.2.html
Amatory Fiction • Fictions of erotic intrigue; focused on love, usually sexual love; secular • Popular in Britain in the late 17th and early 18th centuries • Influenced by Continental Romance tradition, and French scandal fiction
Often written by women; popular with women • Often political • Precursor to the novel • Ancestor to Romance novels, “Bodice-Rippers”, etc.
“The early eighteenth century, then, saw a split between female-authored pious and didactic love fiction, stressing the virues of chastity or sentimental marriage, and erotic fiction by women, with its voyeuristic attention to the combined pleasures and ravages of seduction” (Ros Ballaster, Seductive Forms: Women’s Amatory Fiction from 1684 to 1740. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 199233).
Aphra Behn • 1640–1689 • many biographical details unclear • A prolific writer in many genres • The “Incomparable Astrea” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphra_Behn
“The Fair Triumvirate of Wit” • difficult life: worked hard and died in poverty • critics have not been kind http://www.maskitalia.com/massimo.htm
Anonymous Lampoon, 1687[possibly by Robert Gould]Doth that lewd Harlot, that Poetick Quean,Fam’d through White Fryars, you know who I mean,Mend for reproof, others set up in spight,To flux, takes glisters, vomits, purge and write,Long with a sciatica she’s beside lame,Her limbs distortur’d, Nerves shrunk up with pain,And therefore I’ll all sharp reflections shun,Poverty, Poetry, Pox, are plagues enough for one.quoted by George Woodcock, in Aphra Behn: the English Sappho (1989)
from Behn, “To Lysander, on some Verses he writ, and asking more for his Heart than ’twas worth,” 1684Be just, my lovely swain, and do not takeFreedoms you’ll not to me allow;Or give Amynta so much freedom backThat she may rove as well as you.Let us then love upon the honest square,Since interest neither have designed,For the sly gamester, who ne’er plays me fair,Must trick for trick expect to find.
from Behn, Epilogue, Sir Patient Fancy, 1678What has poor Woman done, that she must beDebar’d from Sense and sacred Poetry?Why in this Age has Heaven allow’d no more,And Women less of Wit than heretofore?..........................................Method, and Rule—you only understand;Pursue that way of Fooling, and be damn’d.Your learned Cant of Action, Time and Place,Must all give way to the unlabour’d Farce.
The modest Muse a veil with pity throwsO’er Vice’s friends and Virtue’s female foes;Abash’d the views the bold unblushing mienOf modern Manley, Centlivre, and Behn;And grieves to see One nobly born disgraceHer modest sex, and her illustrious race.Tho’ harmony thro’ all their numbers flow’d,And genuine wit its ev’ry grace bestow’d,Nor genuine wit nor harmony excuseThe dang’rous fallies of a wanton Muse:Nor can such tuneful, but immoral lays,Expect the trubute of impartial praise...from John Duncombe, The Feminiad, 1754 (ll. 139-150)
“Sappho famous for her gout and guilt,” “debauch’d and vile” [Sappho=Behn]Robert Gould,“The Playhouse,” Collected Poems, 1689
Once, to your Shame, your Parts to all were shown, But now, (tho’ a more Public Woman grown,) You gain more Reputation in the Town; Grow Public, to your Honour, not your Shame, As more Men now you please, gain much more Fame; Who, for your Parts, got much more Praise before, But, as your Pains, in bringing forth, were more; But now, more credit you from all Men gain, As you bring forth, in Public, with less Pain, Your easiest Off-springs of your Wanton Brain...William Wycherley, “To the Sappho of the Age. Suppos’d to Ly-In of a Love-Distemper, or a Play,” Miscellany Poems, 1704
...when their verse did fail To get ’em Brandy, Bread and Chease and Ale, Their wants by Prostitution were supply’d, Shew but a Tester, you might up and ride: For punk* and Poetess agree so pat [punk=prostitute] You cannot well be This, and not be That.Robert Gould, “The Poetess, A Satyr,” The Works of Mr. Robert Gould, 1709
The stage how loosely does Astrea tread, 11 Who fairly puts all characters to bed!Alexander Pope, “The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace Imitated,” 1737
All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds. It is she—shady and amorous as she was—who makes it not quite fantastic for me to say to you tonight: Earn five hundred a year by your wits.Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1928
Eliza Haywood • 1693–1756 • many biographical details unclear • Long career; a prolific writer in many genres • The “Great Arbitress of Passion” http://www.unbsj.ca/arts/english/jones/mt/images/eliza.gif
A “Shameless Scribbler” (Alexander Pope) • From scandalous to decorous http://www.maskitalia.com/massimo.htm
Frontispiece to The Female Spectator, a periodical for women edited by Haywood.
Masquerade • European tradition of Carnival: festivals of liberating anonymity when the sexes, and social classes, mixed with relative freedom • Venetian Carnival the most famous http://www.ellencline.com/theatre.html
17th couple in carnival masks F.Bertelli: "Magnifico e Cortigiana" - (1642) http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/magnifico.html
Moretta (mask worn by women, secured with a button held between the teeth) G.Grevembroch: "Mascara" - (18th century) http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/moretta.html
Group of masked men and women, late 18thc http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/games.html G.DePian: highlights from C.Goldoni's play "Le Donne Gelose" - (1791)
Contemporary photos of masked women at the Venetian Carnival http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/gallery.html
Masks • Women often went to the theatre masked • Masks in the theatre were associated with prostitutes and courtesans http://www.unitedmaskandparty.com/Masks/images/feather_mask_t09.JPG
Masked woman and man in period costume http://www.meetingeurope.com/costumes/files/18_century_costume_2.htm
To consider: • Is Fantomina in charge of her own destiny? • Does the story present a radical view of relations between women and men? • How can we interpret the ending? http://www.maskitalia.com/lucia.htm
Delarivier Manley • 1670c – 1724
To consider: • M.M. Bakhtin wrote about “dialogized alien voices” in narrative prose; do we see any here? http://www.maskitalia.com/lucia.htm
“The struggle for control over the identification and interpretation of amatory signs between male and female protagonists which is enacted on the level of content can be taken as a metaphorical substitution for the struggle for epistemological authority between male and female readers and writers on the level of form” (24). Ros Ballaster
