The hidden author an interpretation of Petronius' Satyricon - Conte, Gian Biagio (University of California Press, 1996)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-214) and indexes
Ch. 1 - The Mythomaniac Narrator and the Hidden Author -- - Ch. 2 - The Mythomaniac Narrator and the Longing for the Sublime -- - Ch. 3 - The Deceptiveness of Myth -- - Ch. 4 - Sex, Food, and Money: Low Themes versus High Scenarios -- - Ch. 5 - The Quest for a Genre (or Chasing Will o' the Wisps?): Some Skeptical Thoughts on Menippean Satire -- - Ch. 6 - Realism and Irony
"Petronius's Satyricon is famous today primarily for the amazing banquet tale, "Trimalchio's Feast," also celebrated in Fellini's film, Satyricon. But this episode is only one part of the larger picture offered by the work." "In The Hidden Author, Professor Conte starts with the structure of the work as a whole, inviting the reader to appreciate the elements of irony and fantasy woven into the text. The author has hidden himself with the aim of striking at the vanity of the contemporary cultured scene, handing over his stage to his characters, who are living in various sorts of degradation, but who see themselves, in minds overactively appropriating a great literary heritage, as figures of mythic proportions. In the foreground of Petronius's work can be seen the follies and excesses of the Rome of Nero's time; in the background, the outlines of the intellectual life of the early Empire."--Jacket