Umberto Giulio Eco

"Name of the Rose"

The Notes of Father Adson from Melk fell into the hands of a future translator and publisher in Prague in 1968. On the title page of the French book from the middle of the last century it is stated that it is an adaptation from a Latin text of the 17th century, allegedly reproducing, in turn, the manuscript , created by a German monk at the end of the 14th century. Investigations undertaken regarding the author French translation, the Latin original, as well as the personality of Adson himself, do not bring results. Subsequently, the strange book (possibly a fake, existing in a single copy) disappears from the view of the publisher, who added another link to the unreliable chain of retellings of this medieval story.

In his declining years, the Benedictine monk Adson recalls the events that he witnessed and participated in in 1327. Europe was rocked by political and church strife. Emperor Louis confronts Pope John XXII. At the same time, the pope is fighting the monastic order of the Franciscans, in which the reform movement of non-acquisitive spiritualists, who had previously been subjected to severe persecution by the papal curia, prevailed. The Franciscans unite with the emperor and become a significant force in the political game.

During this turmoil, Adson, then still a young novice, accompanies the English Franciscan William of Baskerville on a journey through the cities and largest monasteries of Italy. Wilhelm - thinker and theologian, natural scientist, famous for his powerful analytical mind, friend of William of Occam and student of Roger Bacon, carries out the emperor's task to prepare and conduct a preliminary meeting between the imperial Franciscan delegation and representatives of the curia. William and Adson arrive at the abbey where it is to take place a few days before the arrival of the embassies. The meeting should take the form of a debate about the poverty of Christ and the church; its goal is to find out the positions of the parties and the possibility of a future visit of the Franciscan general to the papal throne in Avignon.

Before even entering the monastery, Wilhelm surprises the monks who went out in search of the runaway horse with precise deductive conclusions. And the abbot of the abbey immediately turns to him with a request to conduct an investigation into the strange death that happened in the monastery. The body of the young monk Adelmo was found at the bottom of the cliff; perhaps he was thrown out of the tower of a tall building hanging over the abyss, called here the Temple. The abbot hints that he knows the true circumstances of Adelmo's death, but he is bound by secret confession, and therefore the truth must come from other, unsealed lips.

Wilhelm receives permission to interview all monks without exception and examine any premises of the monastery - except for the famous monastery library. The largest in the Christian world, comparable to the semi-legendary libraries of the infidels, it is located on the top floor of the Temple; Only the librarian and his assistant have access to it; only they know the layout of the storage facility, built like a labyrinth, and the system for arranging books on the shelves. Other monks: copyists, rubricators, translators, flocking here from all over Europe, work with books in the copying room - the scriptorium. The librarian alone decides when and how to provide a book to the person who requested it, and whether to provide it at all, for there are many pagan and heretical works here. In the scriptorium, William and Adson meet the librarian Malachi, his assistant Berengar, the translator from Greek, an adherent of Aristotle, Venantius, and the young rhetorician Benzius. The late Adelm, a skilled draftsman, decorated the margins of manuscripts with fantastic miniatures. As soon as the monks laugh, looking at them, blind brother Jorge appears in the scriptorium with a reproach that laughter and idle talk are indecent in the monastery. This man, glorious in years, righteousness and learning, lives with the feeling of the onset of the last times and in anticipation of the imminent appearance of the Antichrist. Examining the abbey, Wilhelm comes to the conclusion that Adelm, most likely, was not killed, but committed suicide by throwing himself down from the monastery wall, and the body was subsequently transferred under the Temple by a landslide.

But that same night, the corpse of Venantius was discovered in a barrel of fresh blood from slaughtered pigs. Wilhelm, studying the traces, determines that the monk was killed somewhere else, most likely in Khramin, and thrown into a barrel already dead. But meanwhile there are no wounds, no damage or signs of struggle on the body.

Noticing that Benzius is more excited than others, and Berengar is openly frightened, Wilhelm immediately interrogates both. Berengar admits that he saw Adelm on the night of his death: the draftsman’s face was like the face of a dead man, and Adelm said that he was cursed and doomed to eternal torment, which he described to the shocked interlocutor very convincingly. Benzius reports that two days before Adelmo’s death, a debate took place in the scriptorium about the admissibility of the ridiculous in the depiction of the divine and that holy truths are better represented in rude bodies than in noble ones. In the heat of the argument, Berengar inadvertently let slip, although very vaguely, about something carefully hidden in the library. The mention of this was associated with the word “Africa”, and in the catalog, among the designations understandable only to the librarian, Benzius saw the “limit of Africa” visa, but when, becoming interested, he asked for a book with this visa, Malachi stated that all these books were lost. Benzius also talks about what he witnessed while following Berengar after the dispute. Wilhelm receives confirmation of the version of Adelm's suicide: apparently, in exchange for some service that could be related to Berengar's capabilities as an assistant librarian, the latter persuaded the draftsman to the sin of Sodomy, the severity of which Adelm, however, could not bear and hastened to confess to the blind Jorge, but instead absolution received a formidable promise of inevitable and terrible punishment. The consciousness of the local monks is too excited, on the one hand, by a painful desire for book knowledge, on the other, by the constantly terrifying memory of the devil and hell, and this often forces them to literally see with their own eyes something they read or hear about. Adelm considers himself to have already fallen into hell and, in despair, decides to take his own life.

William tries to examine the manuscripts and books on Venantius's desk in the scriptorium. But first Jorge, then Benzius, under various pretexts, distract him. Wilhelm asks Malachi to put someone on guard at the table, and at night, together with Adson, he returns here through the discovered underground passage, which the librarian uses after he locks the doors of the Temple from the inside in the evening. Among the papers of Venantius, they find a parchment with incomprehensible extracts and cryptographic signs, but on the table there is no book that William saw here during the day. Someone makes their presence known in the scriptorium with a careless sound. Wilhelm gives chase and suddenly a book that fell from the fugitive falls into the light of the lantern, but the unknown person manages to grab it before Wilhelm and escape.

At night, fear guards the library stronger than locks and prohibitions. Many monks believe that terrible creatures and the souls of dead librarians wander among books in the dark. Wilhelm is skeptical about such superstitions and does not miss the opportunity to study the vault, where Adson experiences the effects of illusion-generating distorting mirrors and a lamp soaked in a vision-inducing composition. The labyrinth turns out to be more complicated than Wilhelm expected, and only by chance they manage to discover the exit. From the alarmed abbot they learn about the disappearance of Berengar.

The dead assistant librarian is found only a day later in the bathhouse located next to the monastery hospital. The herbalist and healer Severin draws Wilhelm's attention to the fact that Berengar has traces of some substance on his fingers. The herbalist says that he saw the same ones at Venantius, when the corpse was washed from the blood. In addition, Berengar's tongue turned black - apparently the monk was poisoned before he drowned in the water. Severin says that once upon a time he kept an extremely poisonous potion, the properties of which he himself did not know, and it later disappeared under strange circumstances. Malachi, the abbot and Berengar knew about the poison. Meanwhile, embassies are coming to the monastery. Inquisitor Bernard Guy arrives with the papal delegation. Wilhelm does not hide his dislike for him personally and his methods. Bernard announces that from now on he himself will investigate incidents in the monastery, which, in his opinion, strongly smack of the devil.

Wilhelm and Adson again enter the library to draw up a plan for the labyrinth. It turns out that the storage rooms are marked with letters, from which, if you go through in a certain order, conventional words and names of countries are formed. The “limit of Africa” is also discovered - a disguised and tightly closed room, but they do not find a way to enter it. Bernard Guy detained and accused of witchcraft the doctor's assistant and a village girl, whom he brings at night to gratify the lust of his patron for the remains of the monastery meals; Adson had also met her the day before and could not resist the temptation. Now the girl’s fate is decided - as a witch she will go to the stake.

A fraternal discussion between the Franciscans and representatives of the pope turns into a vulgar fight, during which Severin informs Wilhelm, who remained aside from the battle, that he found a strange book in his laboratory. Their conversation is heard by the blind Jorge, but Benzius also guesses that Severin discovered something left from Berengar. The dispute, which resumed after a general pacification, was interrupted by the news that the herbalist was found dead in the hospital and the murderer had already been captured.

The herbalist's skull was crushed by a metal celestial globe standing on the laboratory table. Wilhelm is looking for traces of the same substance on Severin’s fingers as Berengar and Venantius, but the herbalist’s hands are covered with leather gloves used when working with dangerous drugs. The cellarer Remigius is caught at the scene of the crime, who tries in vain to justify himself and declares that he came to the hospital when Severin was already dead. Benzius tells William that he was one of the first to run in here, then watched those entering and was sure: Malachi was already here, waited in a niche behind the curtain, and then quietly mixed with other monks. Wilhelm is convinced that big book no one could get out of here secretly and if the murderer is Malachi, she must still be in the laboratory. Wilhelm and Adson begin their search, but lose sight of the fact that sometimes ancient manuscripts were bound several times into one volume. As a result, the book goes unnoticed by them among others that belonged to Severin, and ends up with the more perceptive Benzius.

Bernard Guy holds a trial over the cellarer and, having convicted him of once belonging to one of the heretical movements, forces him to accept the blame for the murders in the abbey. The inquisitor is not interested in who actually killed the monks, but he seeks to prove that the former heretic, now declared a murderer, shared the views of the Franciscan spiritualists. This allows him to disrupt the meeting, which, apparently, was the purpose for which he was sent here by the pope.

To William’s demand to give the book back, Benzius replies that, without even starting to read, he returned it to Malachi, from whom he received an offer to take the vacant position as an assistant librarian. A few hours later, during a church service, Malachi dies in convulsions, his tongue is black and there are marks on his fingers that are already familiar to Wilhelm.

The abbot announces to William that the Franciscan did not live up to his expectations and the next morning he must leave the monastery with Adson. Wilhelm objects that he has known about the sodomy monks, the settling of scores between whom the abbot considered the cause of the crimes, for a long time. However, this is not the real reason: those who know about the existence of the “limit of Africa” in the library are dying. The abbot cannot hide that William’s words led him to some kind of guess, but he insists all the more firmly on the Englishman’s departure; Now he intends to take matters into his own hands and under his own responsibility.

But Wilhelm is not going to retreat, because he has come close to the decision. By a chance hint from Adson, he manages to read the key that opens the “limit of Africa” in the secret writing of Venantius. On the sixth night of their stay in the abbey, they enter the secret room of the library. Blind Jorge is waiting for them inside.

Wilhelm expected to meet him here. The very omissions of the monks, entries in the library catalog and some facts allowed him to find out that Jorge was once a librarian, and when he felt that he was going blind, he first taught his first successor, then Malachi. Neither one nor the other could work without his help and did not take a single step without asking him. The abbot was also dependent on him, since he received his position with his help. For forty years the blind man has been the sovereign master of the monastery. And he believed that some of the library's manuscripts should forever remain hidden from anyone's eyes. When, due to the fault of Berengar, one of them - perhaps the most important - left these walls, Jorge made every effort to bring her back. This book is the second part of Aristotle’s Poetics, considered lost, and is dedicated to laughter and the funny in art, rhetoric, and the skill of persuasion. In order for its existence to remain a secret, Jorge does not hesitate to commit a crime, because he is convinced: if laughter is sanctified by the authority of Aristotle, the entire established medieval hierarchy of values ​​will collapse, and the culture nurtured in monasteries remote from the world, the culture of the chosen and initiated, will swept away by the urban, grassroots, area.

Jorge admits that he understood from the very beginning: sooner or later Wilhelm would discover the truth, and watched how step by step the Englishman approached it. He hands Wilhelm a book, for the desire to see which five people have already paid with their lives, and offers to read it. But the Franciscan says that he has unraveled this devilish trick of his, and restores the course of events. Many years ago, having heard someone in the scriptorium expressing interest in the “limit of Africa,” the still sighted Jorge stole poison from Severin, but did not immediately use it. But when Berengar, out of boasting to Adelm, one day behaved unrestrainedly, the already blind old man goes upstairs and saturates the pages of the book with poison. Adelmo, who agreed to a shameful sin in order to touch the secret, did not take advantage of the information obtained at such a price, but, seized with mortal horror after confessing to Jorge, he tells Venantius about everything. Venantius gets to the book, but in order to separate the soft parchment sheets, he has to wet his fingers on his tongue. He dies before he can leave the Temple. Berengar finds the body and, fearing that the investigation will inevitably reveal what happened between him and Adelm, transfers the corpse to a barrel of blood. However, he also became interested in the book, which he snatched almost from Wilhelm’s hands in the scriptorium. He brings it to the hospital, where he can read at night without fear of being noticed by anyone. And when the poison begins to take effect, he rushes into the bath in the vain hope that the water will quench the flames that are devouring him from the inside. This is how the book gets to Severin. Jorge's messenger, Malachi, kills the herbalist, but dies himself, wanting to know what is so forbidden in the item that made him a murderer. The last in this row is the abbot. After a conversation with Wilhelm, he demanded an explanation from Jorge, moreover: he demanded to open the “limit of Africa” and put an end to the secrecy established in the library by the blind man and his predecessors. Now he is suffocating in a stone bag of another underground passage to the library, where Jorge locked him and then broke the door control mechanisms.

“So the dead died in vain,” says Wilhelm: now the book has been found, and he managed to protect himself from Jorge’s poison. But in fulfillment of his plan, the elder is ready to accept death himself. Jorge tears the book and eats the poisoned pages, and when Wilhelm tries to stop him, he runs, accurately navigating the library from memory. The lamp in the hands of the pursuers still gives them some advantage. However, the overtaken blind man manages to take away the lamp and throw it aside. Spilled oil starts a fire; Wilhelm and Adson rush to get water, but return too late. The efforts of all the brethren, raised by alarm, lead nowhere; The fire bursts out and spreads from the Temple, first to the church, then to the rest of the buildings.

Before Adson’s eyes, the richest monastery turns into ashes. The abbey burns for three days. By the end of the third day, the monks, having collected the little that they managed to save, leave the smoking ruins as a place cursed by God.

The future translator came across the book “Notes of Father Adson from Melk”; on the first page it is written that the book was translated from Latin into French at the end of the 14th century. The translator was unable to find the author of the translation or find out who Adson was. Soon the book itself disappeared from view.

Already an old man, monk Adson recalls his childhood, when in 1327 he was still a young novice and witnessed political and church strife, the confrontation between Louis and John XXII. He accompanied the English Franciscan William of Baskerville on a trip to Italy, who had the task of preparing and holding a meeting between the delegations of the Franciscans and the Curia. The meeting should take place at the abbey, where they come a couple of days before the delegation’s congress. Wilhelm was a master of deduction, the monks learned this and asked to investigate the strange death of the monk Adelmo, whose body was found at the bottom of a cliff. The abbot hinted that he was aware of the details of Adelmo’s death, but could not voice it because of his confession. The master of deduction is given all the powers to find out the truth, but they clarify that the only place forbidden for him is the library, which is located in Khramin. Only two people are allowed to enter the library - the librarian and his assistant. Only they know the layout of the library labyrinth and the location of the books. Everyone who comes to the library works with books in the scriptorium - a room near the book storage. The detectives meet the librarian Malachi and assistant Berengar, the translator Venantius and the rhetorician Benzius. The deceased, as detectives found out, was engaged in drawing miniatures, putting them in the margins of manuscripts. Adson and Wilhelm looked at them and laughed, when the blind monk Jorge appeared, reproaching them that their behavior was inappropriate within these walls.

Having completely examined the abbey, the thought comes to William that Adelm simply committed suicide, but having found the corpse of Venantius in a barrel of pig’s blood at night, he understands that the monk was killed in another place, most likely in Khramin, and the body was already placed in a barrel. Such an incident greatly excited Benzius, and Berengar was very frightened. After interrogating them, Wilhelm learns that Berengar saw Adelm on the day of his death, moreover, they talked. According to Berengar, Adelm was very excited, talking about some kind of nonsense about the curse. A couple of days before his death, in the scriptorium there was a discussion about his miniatures, that they were too cheerful as for a divine image. In their conversations they used the word “Africa”, the essence of which was understandable only to the librarian, but at the request of Benzius to give him a visa “the limit of Africa”, Malachi said that they were all lost.

Wilhelm is increasingly inclined to the version of suicide, but still decides to examine the library and Venantius’s table, at which he worked with books, and in one of the drawers they find a secret book, which they decide to study later, and leave the scriptorium. At night, Wilhelm and Adson sneak into the library through a secret passage, but someone has already taken the book, and in the morning they are informed that the librarian’s assistant Berengar was found dead, on whose body, like Adelm’s, the herbalist Severin noticed some substance. The detectives visit the library again at night, exploring the maze of book storage, and find a room called "the limit of Africa", but do not understand how to enter it. Severin soon dies. The abbot, who was not satisfied with the five deaths in the monastery, asks Wilhelm and Ason to leave the monastery in the morning, claiming that the monks were simply settling old scores among themselves, but Wilhelm explained that all the deaths were due to the existing one in the library “betrayed by Africa.”

Before leaving, at night, they enter the secret room of the library, where Jorge was waiting for them. Wilhelm learns that Jorge has been in the abbey for forty years, he is considered the sovereign master here, and that he hid in this room all, in his opinion, dangerous books, but one of them - the second part of Aristotle's Poetics - left these walls. Jorge understood that the existence and writing in this book should be kept secret, and for this purpose he soaked the pages with poison taken from Severin. Having told everything, Jorge began to tear the book, chewing the poisoned pages, and rushed to run away. Wilhelm and Adson, holding a lamp in their hands, chased after him. Having caught up with the old man, Jorge knocks the lamp out of Adson’s hands, the burning oil spills and the fire engulfs old books and parchments. The monastery caught fire and burned for another three days, and all the remaining monks left its ruins, as if cursed by God.

Essays

The image of the main character in the novel by U. Eco “The Name of the Rose” Artistic analysis of Umberto Eco’s novel “The Name of the Rose” Dialogue between the author and the reader in Umberto Eco’s novel “The Name of the Rose” Postmodernism U. Eco “The Name of the Rose” Interpretation and over-interpretation in the novel “The Name of the Rose”

The events described in the novel take place in the 14th century AD in a medieval Italian monastery. The famous religious figure of that time, William of Baskerville, arrives at the rich Benedictine monastery with his assistant Adson of Otranto (it is from his words that everything that happened is presented to us). William arrived at the monastery to prepare a meeting between representatives of the Pope and the head of the Franciscan order, to which he himself belongs. The meeting is needed for a detailed discussion of the meeting, which is important both for the Pope and for the Franciscan order.

The abbot of the monastery, having heard about Wilhelm's developed deductive abilities, asks him to investigate mysterious death which took place in the monastery the day before - a young monk of the monastery named Adelm fell into the abyss. At the same time, the abbot strictly forbids William from visiting the monastery’s library, which at that time was considered one of the richest in the entire Christian world.

Ailhelm begins to investigate and discovers that all traces lead precisely to the library: it was there that Adelm worked as a copyist, and subsequent victims also worked there, of which there were several more during the time of his interment in the monastery of Wilhelm. Vilgel and Adson find out that a certain mysterious book, which all the dead so badly wanted to get hold of, is to blame for everything. They find a secret passage to the library, but their visit ends rather ingloriously: they fall into several traps set by an unknown person, and also get lost in a labyrinth of rooms. The detectives decide that they can solve the mystery from the outside. And they really succeed: they draw up a supposed plan for the labyrinths of the library, which then turns out to be completely correct.

Young Adson understands that people who were previously members of heretical gangs live in the monastery. One of them is the cellarer Remigius, the other is his comrade Salvador. They actively take advantage of the position of Remigius, exchanging food from the monastery for the affectionate treatment of young girls from nearby villages. One day Remigia is caught by Adson doing this. Remigius retreated, and the girl who liked Adson begins a relationship with him.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Franciscan Order and the Pope come to the monastery. The main point of divergence between the positions of the pope and the order was the issue of the poverty of Christ: the Franciscans believed that Christ did not own any property, while the pope and his entourage were drowning in luxury and considered this a dangerous heresy (for which in those days they could be burned at the stake) . Inquisitor Bernard Guy, leading a delegation of representatives of the pope, takes upon himself the protection of order in the monastery. Very soon he gets on the trail of Salvador and Remigius and finds out that they were part of the cruel sect of Dolcina, who was burned at the stake. The capture of the heretics undermined the position of the Franciscans and the meeting was actually disrupted. Representatives of the parties are leaving. Wilhelm came very close to solving the mystery of the library, but the abbot forbade him to continue the investigation and asked him to leave the monastery.

Wilgel decides to solve the mystery at all costs and eventually understands how to enter the secret room of the library, where the main culprit of all the troubles that have occurred is already waiting for him - the former librarian, the blind old man Jorge, who desperately defends the book “Poetics” that exists in one copy. Aristotle, where the necessity of laughter is convincingly proven. It was this book that caused the death of at least six people: some died from the poison with which the book was saturated, others died violently. Realizing that he has been exposed, Jorge begins to rip out pages from the book and eat it to destroy it. When trying to stop him, a fire breaks out, completely destroying both the library and the monastery.

Adson and Wilhelm leave the conflagration, only to soon part ways forever.

The meaning of “The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco appears to us both as a detective story and as a historical novel. There are many philosophical and religious issues in the book that are of very dubious relevance in our time.

Conclusion No matter what fans of the book “The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco say, it is difficult to read. For example, it was not easy for me to find time and place for this (it is extremely difficult to do this in the subway and the swimming pool, where I take my daughter). I was very tired of the endless descriptions and the unreasonably frequent use of old words. It was very easy to guess the main villain; I did it on page seventy. In general, the book did not really grab me, it is definitely not the best detective story and certainly not the best novel that I have read. However, I can't say that I wasted my time. Read it too :)

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Notes on the margins of “The Name of the Rose”

The novel is accompanied by “Marginal Notes” of “The Name of the Rose,” in which the author brilliantly talks about the process of creating his novel.

The novel ends with a Latin phrase, which translates as follows: “A rose with the same name - with our names henceforth.” As the author himself notes, it raised many questions, so the “Marginal Notes” of “The Name of the Rose” begin with an “explanation” of the meaning of the title.

“The title “The Name of the Rose” arose almost by accident,” writes Umberto Eco, “and it suited me, because the rose as a symbolic figure is so rich in meaning that it has almost no meaning: the rose is mystical, and the tender rose lived no longer than the rose, war Scarlet and White roses, a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, Rosicrucians 18, a rose smells like a rose, call it a rose or not, rosa fresca aulentissima. The title, as intended, disorients the reader. He cannot favor any one interpretation. Even if he gets to the implied nominalist interpretation of the last sentence, he will still only arrive at it at the very end, having made a host of other assumptions. The title should confuse thoughts, not discipline them.”

At first, writes U. Eco, he wanted to call the book “Abbey of Crimes,” but such a title would set readers up for a detective plot and would confuse those who are only interested in intrigue.” It is the author’s dream to call the novel “Adson of Melk,” because this hero stands aside, takes a kind of neutral position. The title “The Name of the Rose,” notes W. Eco, suited him, “because the rose, like a symbolic figure, is so saturated with meaning that it has almost no meaning... The title, as intended, disorients the reader... The title should confuse thoughts, not discipline their" . In this way, the writer emphasizes that the text lives its own life, often independent of it. Hence new, different readings and interpretations, to which the title of the novel should set the mood. And it is no coincidence that the author placed this Latin quotation from a 12th-century work at the end of the text so that the reader would make various assumptions, thoughts and compare, be perplexed and argue.

“I wrote a novel because I wanted to,” writes the author. I believe that this is reason enough to sit down and start talking. Man is a storytelling animal from birth. I started writing in March 1978. I wanted to poison the monk. I think that every novel is born from such thoughts. The rest of the pulp grows on its own."

The novel takes place in the Middle Ages. The author writes: “At first I was going to settle the monks in a modern monastery (I came up with a monk-investigator, a subscriber to the Manifesto). But since any monastery, and especially the abbey, still lives with the memory of the Middle Ages, I awakened the medievalist in myself from hibernation and sent me to rummage through my own archive. 1956 monograph on medieval aesthetics, hundred pages 1969 on the same topic; a few articles in between; studies in medieval culture in 1962, in connection with Joyce; finally, in 1972 - great study on the Apocalypse and on illustrations to the interpretation of the Apocalypse by Beat of Lieban: in general, my Middle Ages were maintained in combat readiness. I raked out a bunch of materials - notes, photocopies, extracts. All this has been selected since 1952 for the most incomprehensible purposes: for the history of freaks, for a book about medieval encyclopedias, for the theory of lists... At some point I decided that since the Middle Ages are my mental daily routine, it would be easiest to place the action directly in Middle Ages".

“So, I decided not only that the story would be about the Middle Ages. I also decided that the story would come from the Middle Ages, from the mouth of a chronicler of that era,” writes the author. For this purpose, Umberto re-read a huge number of medieval chronicles, “learned rhythm, naivety.”

According to Eco, working on a novel is a cosmological event:

“To tell a story, first of all it is necessary to create a certain world, arranging it as best as possible and thinking through it in detail<…>In the world I created, History played a special role. Therefore, I endlessly re-read medieval chronicles and, as I read, I realized that I would inevitably have to introduce things into the novel that I had never even thought of initially, for example, the struggle for poverty and the persecution of half-brothers by the Inquisition. Let's say, why did half-brothers appear in my book, and with them the fourteenth century? If I were to write a medieval story, I would take the 13th or 12th century - I knew these eras much better. But a detective was needed. An Englishman is best (intertextual quotation). This detective must have been distinguished by his love of observation and special skill interpret external signs. Such qualities can only be found among the Franciscans, and only after Roger Bacon. At the same time, we find a developed theory of signs only among the Ockhamists. Or rather, it also existed before, but earlier the interpretation of signs was either purely symbolic in nature, or saw only ideas and universals behind the signs. It was only from Bacon to Occam, in this single period, that signs were used to study individuals. So I realized that the plot would have to unfold in the fourteenth century, and I was very dissatisfied. This was much more difficult for me. If so - new readings, and behind them - a new discovery. I firmly understood that a fourteenth-century Franciscan, even an Englishman, could not be indifferent to the discussion of poverty. Especially if he is a friend or student of Occam or just a person in his circle. By the way, at first I wanted to make Occam himself the investigator, but then I abandoned this idea, because as a person I don’t like Venerabilis Inceptor6 much.”

Because by December Mikhail Tszensky was already in Avignon. This is what it means to fully organize the world of a historical novel. Some elements - such as the number of steps of the staircase - depend on the will of the author, while others, such as Mikhail’s movements, depend only on the real world, which, purely by chance, and only in novels of this type, wedges itself into the arbitrary world of the narrative.

According to Eco, “the world we have created itself indicates where the plot should go.” And indeed, having chosen the Middle Ages for his novel, Eco only directs the action, which unfolds itself, according to the laws and logic of the events of those years. And this is especially interesting.

In his notes, Eco reveals to the reader the entire “kitchen of creation” of his work. So we learn that the choice of certain historical details caused some difficulties for the writer:

“There was some trouble with the labyrinth. All the labyrinths I know - and I

I used the excellent monograph of Santarcangeli - they were without a roof. Everything is completely intricate, with many whirlpools. But I needed

a labyrinth with a roof (who has ever seen a library without a roof!). And not very difficult. There is almost no ventilation in the labyrinth, overloaded with corridors and dead ends. And ventilation was necessary for the fire<...>After fiddling around for two or three months, I built the required labyrinth myself. And still, in the end, he pierced it with slits-embrasures, otherwise, when it came to it, there might not have been enough air.”

Umberto Eco writes: “I had to fence off a closed space, a concentric universe, and in order to close it better, it was necessary to reinforce the unity of place with the unity of time (the unity of action, alas, remained very problematic). Hence the Benedictine abbey, where all life is measured by the canonical clock.”

In his “Notes,” U. Eco explains the basic concepts of postmodernism, its historical and aesthetic origins. The author notes that he sees the Middle Ages “in the depths of any subject, even one that seems not to be connected with the Middle Ages, but is in fact connected. Everything is connected." In the medieval chronicles, W. Eco discovered the “echo of intertextuality”, for “all books talk about other books... every story retells a story that has already been told.” The novel, the writer claims, is the whole world, created by the author and this cosmological structure lives by its own laws and requires the author to comply with them: “Characters must obey the laws of the world in which they live. That is, the writer is a prisoner of his own premises." W. Eco writes about the game between the author and the reader, which separates the writer from the reader. It “consisted of highlighting the figure of Adson in old age as often as possible, allowing him to comment on what he sees and hears as a young Adson…. The figure of Adson is also important because he, acting as a participant and recorder of events, does not always understand and will not understand in his old age what he writes about. “My goal,” notes the author, “was to make everything clear through the words of someone who does not understand anything.”

W. Eco in “Notes...” emphasizes the need for an objective depiction of reality. Art is an escape from personal feeling,” for literature is called upon to “create a reader,” someone who is ready to play the author’s game. The reader is naturally interested in the plot, and here it is immediately apparent that “The Name of the Rose” is a detective novel, but it differs from others in that “little is revealed in it, and the investigator is defeated. And this is no coincidence, notes U. Eco, since “a book cannot have only one plot. It doesn’t happen like that.” The author talks about the existence of several labyrinths in his novel, primarily the manneristic one, the way out of which can be found by trial and error. but Wilhelm lives in the world of a rhizome - a grid in which the lines - paths are crossed, therefore, there is no center and no exit: “My text is, in essence, the history of labyrinths. Special attention The writer pays attention to irony, which he calls a metalinguistic game. A writer can participate in this game, taking it completely seriously, even sometimes not understanding it: “This,” notes W. Eco, “is the distinctive property (but also the insidiousness) of ironic creativity.” The author's conclusion is that “obsessions exist; they have no owner; books speak to each other and the present judicial investigation must show that we are the culprits.”

Thus, in his “Notes,” Umberto Eco reveals not only the true meaning of the creation of his work, but also the entire technology of writing it.

Thanks to Umberto Eco's extensive knowledge of the history of the Middle Ages, his knowledge of semiotics, literature, criticism, as well as his painstaking work on the word, the entertaining plot, and the choice of details, we get great pleasure from reading a historical novel.

Plot

Introduction

The main characters, William of Baskerville and his young companion Adson of Melk, have to investigate the death of a certain Adelmo of Otranto, a monk of the Benedictine monastery. The action takes place at the end of November 1327 in an unnamed locality, with vague reference to the border of Liguria, Piedmont and France, that is, in northwestern Italy. The plot unfolds over the course of a week. Wilhelm, whose original purpose was to prepare a meeting between the theologians of Pope John XXII and Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria, must now confirm his reputation as a learned man and former famous inquisitor.

Main events

Library

The abbot of the monastery Abbon unreasonably does not allow the heroes into the library, meanwhile there is a version that Adelm, the first to die, fell from the window of the book depository. The library is a labyrinth located on the third floor of the Temple - a tower that amazes Adson with its size, splendor and symbolic architectural form. On the second floor there is a scriptorium, in which the monks copy manuscripts. Here two monastic parties collided - Italians and foreigners. The first ones stand for Free access to all books, for working with the popular language, the latter - conservatives - received leadership positions (the German Malachi is a librarian, his assistant is the Englishman Berengar, and the “gray eminence” is the Spaniard Jorge) and therefore do not share the aspirations of the Italians. In order to understand the reason for what is happening, Wilhelm and Adson secretly enter the library at night. The heroes get lost, meet ghosts, which turn out to be traps, a trick of the human mind. The first foray yielded nothing - having difficulty getting out of the labyrinth, Wilhelm and Adson doubt their own abilities and decide to solve the mystery of the labyrinth “from the outside.”

Nomen nudum

The next night, Adson independently, driven by emotional excitement, enters the library, safely descends to the first floor (where the kitchen is located) and meets there a girl who gave herself to the cellarer for food. Adson has a relationship with her that is reprehensible for a novice.

Subsequently, he realizes that, having lost his beloved, he is even deprived of the last consolation - to cry, saying her name. This episode is probably directly related to the title of the novel (according to another version, the title refers to a rhetorical question in the dispute between realists and nominalists - “ What remains of the name of the rose after the rose disappears?»).

Dispute on the Poverty of Christ

Then representatives of the emperor gather at the monastery - mainly Franciscans (like brother William) led by the general of the order - Michael Tsezensky, and the papal embassy led by the inquisitor Bernard Guy and the Podget cardinal. The official purpose of the meeting is to discuss the conditions under which Mikhail Tsezensky will be able to arrive in Avignon to Pope John to give explanations. The pope considers heresy the doctrine proclaimed by the Perugia Chapter of the Franciscan Order that Christ and the apostles had no property, while the emperor - an opponent of the pope - supported the decisions of the chapter. The dispute about the poverty of Christ is only a formal reason, behind which lies intense political intrigue. According to William, “...the question is not whether Christ was poor, but whether the church should be poor. And poverty in relation to the church does not mean whether it owns any good or not. The question is different: does she have the right to dictate her will to earthly rulers?” Mikhail sincerely seeks reconciliation, but Wilhelm from the very beginning does not believe in the success of the meeting, which is later fully confirmed. For the papal delegation, and especially for Bernard Guy (or Guidoni, as the Italians call him), all that was needed was an excuse to confirm the validity of the accusations of heresy against the Minor Franciscans. This occasion becomes the interrogation of cellarer Remigius of Varaginsky and Salvator, who were at one time Dolcinian heretics. William was unable to find the killer, and the French archers, subordinate to Bernard, take control of the monastery (the undetected killer poses a danger to the embassies). Wilhelm and Adson again enter the library, open the system in the chaos of the rooms and find a mirror - the entrance to the “limit of Africa”, where all traces of the book lead - the causes of all crimes. The door did not open, and upon returning to their cells, the heroes witness Bernard Guy’s capture of the “culprits” - the monk Salvator, who was preparing for love witchcraft, and the girl who was with Adson. The next day there is a debate between the embassies, as a result Bernard uses Salvator and his fellow cellarer Remigius as a weapon against the Franciscans. Under pressure from the inquisitor, they confirm that they once belonged to the Minorites, and then ended up in the Dolcina sect, which professed similar views on the poverty of Christ as the Minorites and fought against the authorities, then betrayed their sect and ended up, “purified”, in this monastery. It is revealed that Remigius had with him letters from the heretic Dolcin to his supporters, and he asked the librarian Malachi to keep these letters, who, not knowing their contents, hides them in the library and then gives them to Bernard Guy. Under pain of torture, Remigius pleads guilty to the murders that occurred earlier in the monastery, and explains them by his connection with the devil. Thus, it turns out that a Dolcian heretic, a murderer possessed by the devil, has been living in the abbey for many years, and the letters of the heresiarch Dolcian were kept in the library. As a result, the authority of the monastery was undermined and negotiations were interrupted. The sixth and final day arrives, the embassies leave, but before that they witness another mysterious death - the librarian Malachi. William asks for an audience with the Abbot, at the end of which Abbo invites him to leave the monastery by morning. The abbot himself does not appear for vespers, and in the resulting confusion, Wilhelm and Adson return to the library, find the key and penetrate into the “limit of Africa.”

World fire

In the "extremity of Africa" ​​they find the blind man Jorge with the only surviving copy of the second book of Aristotle's Poetics. A dispute ensues, during which the blind man argues for the concealment of this work, and Wilhelm argues for the need to reveal it to the world. Jorge of Burgos saw his main enemy in the book, since it flawlessly proved necessity laughter. (The main argument of the blind man is that Jesus never laughed). The old man tears off a page soaked in poison and begins to eat it, turns off the light (there are no windows in the “limit of Africa”), a chase follows through the book depository, then, in front of Wilhelm and Adson, he “finishes” the volume, snatches the lamp from the heroes and sets fire to the library. It is burning, the entire Temple is busy looking after it, the fire spreads to the rest of the buildings. All efforts to extinguish it are in vain. Adson comes to mind with an image from the life of St. Augustine - a boy scooping up the sea with a spoon.

Epilogue

Adson and Wilhelm leave the ashes and soon part ways. Subsequently, already in mature age Adson returns to the place where the monastery was, collecting scraps of miraculously preserved pages. Already in old age, at the end of the century, he completes his memories, preparing for a meeting with God.

Despite numerous awards and the success of the film at the box office, Umberto Eco himself was dissatisfied with the embodiment of his book on the screen. Since then, he has never given permission for the film adaptation of his works. He even refused to Stanley Kubrick, although he later regretted it.

see also

Links

• Michael Sweeney, Lectures on Medieval Philosophy (lectures 23, 24, 25 are devoted to the novel Rose name)

Books by Umberto Eco
Novels	Rose name (1980) · Foucault's Pendulum (1988) · The Island the Day Before (1994) · Baudolino (2000) · The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2004) · Prague Cemetery (2010)
Semiotics	The Evolution of Medieval Aesthetics (1959) · Open Piece (1962) · Joyce's Poetics (1965) · Missing structure. Introduction to Semiology (1968) · The role of the reader. Studies in Text Semiotics (1979) · Art and Beauty in Medieval Aesthetics (1987) · The Quest for a Perfect Language in European Culture (1993) · Six Walks in the Literary Woods (1994) · Five Essays on Ethics (1997)

Categories:

• Literary works alphabetically
• Novels 1980
• Works of Umberto Eco
• Books about the Inquisition
• Novels about the Middle Ages

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- “The Name of the Rose” is the first novel by the Italian writer, professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna Umberto Eco. It was first published in Italian in 1980. Contents 1 Plot 1.1 Introduction ... Wikipedia