Unlike Horace, who consciously inserted autobiographical elements into his Satires and Epistles, Juvenal reveals very little about himself. The striking absence of self in the Satires is one of the defining characteristics of his art, which has recently come particularly into focus. Thus Tom Geue draws directly upon J. Uden's The Invisible Satirist (2015) in developing the topic of invisibility into a poetics of anonymity. In a comprehensive definition G. describes his approach as follows: ‘By anonymity I shall often mean the general sense of Juvenal's shocking “removal of self” in a genre so traditionally self-obsessed: his work consistently betrays no “autobiographical” elements, no sense of physical body, no clear window on the author's societal position’ (17). This shows that he places the poet within an inappropriately restrictive generic framework. Here a more dynamic perception of the genre may be a better approach.
G. argues in favour of a complete suppression of identity by Juvenal, whom he predominantly refers to as ‘Anon’ (from 28 onward). According to G., Juvenal's elimination of an individual body and a personal voice is motivated by an ‘aim to remain unrecognized’ (42) in the dangerous political environment of imperial Rome.
G. offers close readings of several Satires, which he reassesses in accordance with his approach within the overarching framework of satiric anonymity. Thus he convincingly exposes in his interpretation of Sat. 9 and 11 the effects of the satirist's strategy: by remaining in the background he spotlights his satiric targets (on Naevolus as self-exposing victim see 100–13, on Persicus see 178–9). However, the question remains whether the exposure of others necessarily implies the concealment of self. Could the authorial anonymity which G. claims not be explained as an impersonal epic voice? As in epic, situations and characters are presented without the satirist exposing himself.
To support his anonymity theory G. adds numerous, often marginal, substitute satirist figures to the already well-known canon. He himself rightly warns of the potential methodical mistake of identifying the satirist with other possible ‘stand-in’ figures (75). Nevertheless, he states that the nameless young woman in Sat. 14.25–33 ‘comes very close’ (87) to the satirist. He associatively connects her activities with those of the satirist via ceras implere (14.29–30 and 1.63). Similarly, he connects the speaker of Sat. 16 and Umbricius only via emolumenta (16.35 and 3.22). There is another issue with G.’s ‘connection of sentiment’: contrary to his claim, Umbricius does not disappear ‘without a trace … never [to be] seen again’ (302), but asks the satirist to call him from Cumae as an audience for satires whenever the satirist is en route from Rome to his Aquinum (3.318–22). Equally problematic are other ‘stand-ins’ G. has uncovered (cf. Index s.v. surrogates).
G.’s interpretations of individual Satires offer interesting new perspectives on numerous passages, but they are of particular value regarding the later Satires (11–16), which so far have been undertreated. Here he provides us with systematic satire-by-satire analyses (from 154). However, in order to arrive at his QED he does not always do justice to Juvenal's complexity. His reading of Sat. 12 is excessively poetological (179–202) as he himself disarmingly acknowledges (201). It allows him the following statement: ‘The emasculated ship is also a perfect figure for Juvenal's own shrivelled effort in Sat. 12’ (186), referring to its length of only 130 lines. It has to be pointed out that the ship mentioned belongs to Catullus not the satirist, but G. simply replaces one with the other, as he also does in the beaver passage, which he interprets in the same vein as reflecting ‘Juvenal's castrated satire’ (197). This approach of interpreting all appearing characters and events metapoetically as references to the satirist and his poetics left me sceptical. The discussion of Sat. 15 as ‘the culmination of Anon's self-concealing enterprise’ (243) takes up most space (242–85). G.’s obsessive interest in the theme of cannibalism is less convincing. His interpretation of it as a means of understanding the structure of Sat. 15 and his concept of metaliterary cannibalism are solely based on the presumption that the single instance of cannibalism, which is narrated in 15.77–92, is programmatic for the satire as a whole. In his reading of the incomplete Sat. 16, G. tries to explain the abrupt ending after verse 60(!) as rooted in the literary tradition of ‘suspiciously “deliberate”, prematurely terminating fragments’ (31, cf. 306–7) such as Lucan's epic and Statius’ Achilleid.
Contrary to the fixation on the persona approach, long and still dominant, G. refocuses attention on the author, without, however, relapsing into a naive biographism. This subtle and sensitive study presents — not without self-irony — an intriguing and thought-provoking thesis, but it is questionable if the concept of self-concealment is as tangible as G. suggests. Nevertheless, he opens our eyes to the general strategies applied by an author to disappear from his text. However, I am not convinced that ‘ridenda poemata malo / quam …’ (10.124) has to be taken at face value. G.’s biased reading of this passage (cf. 148–50, 153–4) and the whole of Sat. 12 (196) as demonstrations of poetic mediocrity and a ‘recommendation of the safe road’ (149) is based on his diagnosis of Juvenal's paranoia of exposure through his poetry. The outstanding Satires uniquely connected with Juvenal's name are in any event anything but mediocre.
