Chimera (Barth novel) Chimera (Barth novel) Chimera is a 1972 fantasy novel written by American writer John Barth, composed of three loosely connected novellas. The novellas are "Dunyazadiad", "Perseid" and "Bellerophoniad", whose titles refer eponymously to the mythical characters Dunyazad, Perseus and Bellerophon (slayer of the mythical Chimera). The book is an example of postmodernism, which can be seen in its metafictional content and its incorporation of stylistic elements that go beyond the traditional novel genre. It shared the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction with "Augustus" by John Edward Williams. The Dunyazadiad is a retelling of the framing story of Scheherazade, the
Chimera (mythology) in "Inferno" xvii.7–17, 25–27, hybrid monsters, more akin to the Manticore of Pliny's Natural History (viii.90), provided iconic representations of hypocrisy and fraud well into the seventeenth century, through an emblematic representation in Cesare Ripa's "Iconologia". The myths of the Chimera may be found in the "Bibliotheca" of Pseudo-Apollodorus (book 1), the "Iliad" (book 16) by Homer, the "Fabulae" 57 and 151 by Hyginus, the "Metamorphoses" (book VI 339 by Ovid; IX 648), and the "Theogony" 319ff by Hesiod. Virgil, in the "Aeneid" (book 5) employs "Chimaera" for the name of gigantic ship of Gyas in the ship-race, with possible