I'm now in the habit of calling Opera Bufa "the Byron book." The Byronic levels built into Opera Bufa as a text are there: playfulness, whimsy, raciness, spiky humor, satire, an emphasis on a light (sometimes deceptively light) approach to textuality; and the weird sense of tumult around some of the (scandalous!) circumstances the book has generated is Byronic, too. I'm ready to flee to Italy, or Chicago...
