NationMaster - Encyclopedia: The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose, a novel by Umberto Eco, is a historical whodunnit—a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327. First published in Italian in 1980 under the title Il nome della rosa, it appeared in 1983 in an English translation by William Weaver. The Name of the Rose (original title, Der Name der Rose) is a 1986 film by Jean-Jacques Annaud, based on the book of the same name by Umberto Eco. ... Name of the Rose is a 2003 movie starring Shaun Benson and Conrad Coates. ... Image File history File links The_Name_of_the_Rose. ... Umberto Eco (born January 5, 1932) is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa) and his many essays. ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... A historical novel a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, in which the time of the action predates the lifetime of the author. ... Mystery fiction is a distinct subgenre of detective fiction that entails the occurrence of an unknown event which requires the protagonist to make known (or solve). ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Year 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... ISBN redirects here. ... Foucaults Pendulum (original title: Il pendolo di Foucault) is a novel by Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco. ... Umberto Eco (born January 5, 1932) is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa) and his many essays. ... The historical whodunnit is a sub-genre of the historical novel, in which the central plot involves a crime (almost always a murder) and the setting is historical. ... Sherlock Holmes, pipe-puffing hero of crime fiction, confers with his colleague Dr. Watson; together these characters popularized the genre. ... Monastery of St. ... William Fense Weaver (b. ...

Plot summary

Along with his apprentice Adso of Melk (named after the Benedictine abbey Stift Melk), the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville journeys to an abbey where a murder has been committed. For the college, see Benedictine College. ... Bold textTHIS IS THE PAGE THAT A.S. REALLY NEEDS!! THIS IS NOW MARKED!!! ] ps i like A.O. This article is about an abbey as a Christian monastic community. ... Stift Melk Courtyard of the Stift Melk Altar of the Stift Melk Stift Melk is a Benedictine abbey in the federal state of Lower Austria, next to the Wachau valley along the Danube. ... The Order of Friars Minor and other Franciscan movements are disciples of Saint Francis of Assisi. ... A friar is a member of a religious mendicant order of men. ... Picture of the book in the binding provided by the Folio Society The Name of the Rose, a 1980 novel by Umberto Eco, is a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327 during the papacy of Pope John XXII. The book was also made into a...

As the plot unfolds, several other people mysteriously die. The protagonists explore a labyrinthine medieval library, the subversive power of laughter, and come face to face with the Inquisition. It is left primarily to William's enormous powers of logic and deduction to solve the mysteries of the abbey. Pedro Berruguete. ...

On one level, the book is an excellent exposition of the scholastic method which was very popular in the 14th century. William demonstrates the power of deductive reasoning, especially syllogisms. He refuses to accept the diagnosis of simple demonic possession despite demonology being the traditional monastic explanation. Despite the abbey being under the misapprehension that they are experiencing the last days before the second coming of Christ (a topic closely examined in the book), William, through his empirical mindset, manages to show that the murders are, in fact, committed by a more corporeal instrument. By keeping an open mind, collecting facts and observations, following pure intuition and the dialectic method, he makes decisions as to what he should investigate, exactly as a scholastic would do. However, the simple use of reason does not suffice. The various signs and happenings only have meaning in their given contexts, and William must constantly be wary of which context he interprets (logic) the mystery. Indeed, the entire story challenges the narrator, William's young apprentice Adso, and the reader to continually recognize the context he is using to interpret, bringing the whole text to various levels which can all have different hermeneutical meanings. The narrative ties in many varied plotlines which all consider interpretation and the source of meaning, highly volatile controversies in the medieval religious setting, all while spiraling towards what seems to be the key to understand and truly interpret the case. Though William's final theories do not exactly match the actual events, they allow him to solve the abbey's mystery. Scholasticism comes from the Latin word scholasticus, which means that [which] belongs to the school, and is the school of philosophy taught by the academics (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100â€“1500. ... This 14th-century statue from south India depicts the gods Shiva (on the left) and Uma (on the right). ... Deductive reasoning is the kind of reasoning where the conclusion is necessitated or implied by previously known premises. ... In traditional logic, a syllogism is an inference in which one proposition (the conclusion) follows of necessity from two others (known as premises). ... Demonology is the systematic study of demons or beliefs about demons. ... Monasticism (from Greek: monachos—a solitary person) is the religious practice of renouncing all worldly pursuits in order to fully devote ones life to spiritual work. ... This page is about the title, office or what is known in Christian theology as the Divine Person. ... A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses. ... In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek: Î´Î¹Î±Î»ÎµÎºÏ„Î¹ÎºÎ®) is controversy, Viz. ... Hermeneutics (Hermeneutic means interpretive), is a branch of philosophy concerned with human understanding and the interpretation of texts. ...

Characters

Picture of the book in the binding provided by the Folio Society The Name of the Rose, a 1980 novel by Umberto Eco, is a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327 during the papacy of Pope John XXII. The book was also made into a... Melk seen from the abbey Stift Melk Melk (older spelling: MÃ¶lk) is a city of Austria, in the federal state of Lower Austria, next to the Wachau valley along the Danube. ... Fossanova Abbey, earlier Fossa Nuova, is a Cistercian monastery in Italy, in the province of Rome, near the railway-station of Priverno, c. ... Ubertino of Casale (Ubertino di Casale) was an Italian minorite and one of the leaders (together with Michael of Cesena; preceded by Peter Olivi) of the stricter branch of the Franciscan Christian order. ... Sankt Wendel is a town in the Saarland, capital of the district Sankt Wendel. ... is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany. ... This article is about the town in England. ... Otranto is a town and commune in the province of Lecce (Apulia, Italy), in a fertile region, and once famous for its breed of horses. ... Uppsala (older spelling Upsala) is a city in central Sweden, located about 70 km north of Stockholm. ... Grottaferrata is a town with a Basilian monastery near Rome, sometimes said to occupy the site of Ciceros Tusculanum and situated on the lower slopes of the Alban hills, in the Diocese of Frascati, two and a half miles from the town itself (41Â°47â€²N 12Â°40â€²E... The cathedral Our Lady of Burgos. ... Country Italy Region Lombardy Province Province of Milan (MI) Mayor Elevation m Area 26. ... For other uses, see Alessandria (disambiguation). ... Michael of Cesena (Michele di Cesena or Michele Fuschi) (c. ... Bernards Arbor genealogiae regum Francorum, showing consanguinity of the kings of France Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262 â€“ 30 December 1331), also known as Bernardo Gui or Bernardus Guidonis, was an inquisitor of the Dominican Order in the Late Middle Ages during the Medieval Inquisition, Bishop of LodÃ¨ve, and...

Major themes

Eco, being a semiotician, is hailed by semiotics students who like to use his novel to explain their discipline. The techniques of telling stories within stories, partial fictionalization, and purposeful linguistic ambiguity are prominent in Eco's narrative style. The solution to the central murder mystery hinges on the contents of Aristotle's book on Comedy, of which no copy survives; Eco nevertheless plausibly describes it and has his characters react to it appropriately in their medieval setting, which, however, though realistically described, is partly based on Eco's scholarly guesses and imagination. It is virtually impossible to untangle fact/history from fiction/conjecture in the novel. Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. ... For other uses, see Aristotle (disambiguation). ... A lost work is a document or literary work produced some time in the past of which no surviving copies are known to exist. ...

Umberto Eco is a significant postmodernist theorist and The Name of the Rose is a postmodern novel.^[1] For example he says in the novel "books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told." This refers to a postmodern ideal that all texts perpetually refer to other texts, rather than external reality.^[1] In true postmodern style, the novel ends with uncertainty: "very little is discovered and the detective is defeated" (postscript). William of Baskerville solves the mystery "by mistake", he thought there was a pattern but it was all in fact accidental. Thus Eco has turned the modernist quest for finality, certainty and meaning on its head leaving the overall plot simply one of accident and without meaning.^[1] Even the novel's title is without meaning, Eco saying in the Postscript he chose the title "because the rose is a symbolic figure so rich in meanings that by now it hardly has any meaning left."^[2]

Title

Much attention has been paid to the mystery of what the title of the novel refers to. In fact, Eco has stated that his intention was to find a "totally neutral title".^[3] In one version of history, when he had finished writing the novel, Eco hurriedly suggested some ten names for it and asked a few of his friends to choose one. They chose The Name of the Rose.^{[citation needed]} In another version of history, Eco had wanted the neutral title Adso of Melk, but that was vetoed by his publisher, and then the title The Name of the Rose "came to me virtually by chance."^[4] Eco wrote that he liked this title "because the rose is a symbolic figure so rich in meanings that by now it hardly has any meaning left."^[5]

The book's last line, "Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus" translates literally as "Yesterday's rose endures in its name; we hold empty names". It can also be translated more roughly as "Of the rose of the past, we have only its name". The general sense, as Eco pointed out,^[6] was that from the beauty of the past, now disappeared, we hold only the name. In this novel, the lost "rose" could be seen as Aristotle's book on comedy (now forever lost), the exquisite library now destroyed, or the beautiful peasant girl now dead. We only know them by the description Adso provides us - we only have the name of the book on comedy, not its contents. For other uses, see Aristotle (disambiguation). ... Aristotles Poetics aims to give an account of poetry. ...

As Adso points out at the end of the fifth day, he does not even know the name of the peasant girl to lament her. Does this mean she does not endure at all? This line is a verse by twelfth century monk Bernard of Cluny (also known as Bernard of Morlaix). Medieval manuscripts of this line are not in agreement; Eco quotes one Medieval variant verbatim,^[7] Eco was not at the time aware of the text more commonly printed in modern editions, in which the reference is to Rome (Roma), not to a rose (rosa). ^[8] The alternative text, with its context, runs: Nunc ubi Regulus aut ubi Romulus aut ubi Remus? / Stat Roma pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus. This translates as "Now where is Regulus, or Romulus, or Remus? / Yesterday's Rome stands only in name; we hold empty names."^[9] (11th century - 12th century - 13th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. ... Bernard of Cluny (or of Morlaix) was a Benedictine monk of the first half of the twelfth century, poet, satirist, and hymn-writer, author of the famous verses On the Contempt of the World. Life His parentage, native land, and education are hidden in obscurity. ... For other uses, see Rome (disambiguation). ...

Allusions

To other works

The name of the central character, William of Baskerville, alludes both to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes (compare The Hound of the Baskervilles) and to William of Ockham (see the next section). The name of the narrator, his apprentice Adso, is among other things a pun on Simplicio from Galileo Galilei's Dialogue; Adso = ad Simplicio ("to Simplicio"). It is also a play on Holmes' friend Dr. Watson. A portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget from the Strand Magazine, 1891 Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. ... The Hound of the Baskervilles is a crime novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, originally serialized in the Strand Magazine in 1901 and 1902, which is set largely on Dartmoor in 1889. ... William of Ockham (also Occam or any of several other spellings, IPA: ) (c. ... Galileo redirects here. ... Dr Watson (left) and Sherlock Holmes, by Sidney Paget. ...

As usual in Eco's novels, there is a display of erudition. The blind librarian Jorge from Burgos is a pun on Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, a major influence on Eco. Borges was blind during his later years and was also director of Argentina's national library; his short story "The Library of Babel" was a clear inspiration for the secret library in Eco's book: "The Library is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite, number of hexagonal galleries, with enormous ventilation shafts in the middle, encircled by very low railings." Another one of Borges' stories, "The Secret Miracle" features a blind librarian. In addition, a number of other themes drawn from various of Borges' works are used throughout The Name of the Rose: labyrinths, mirrors, sects, and obscure manuscripts and books. Look up erudition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The cathedral Our Lady of Burgos. ... For other uses, see Argentina (disambiguation). ... Borges redirects here. ... National Library of the Argentine Republic The Biblioteca Nacional de la RepÃºblica Argentina (Spanish, National Library of the Argentine Republic) is the largest library in Argentina and one of the most important in the Americas. ... This article is in need of attention. ... The Library of Babel (Spanish: ) is a short story by Argentine author (and librarian) Jorge Luis Borges, conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books that can be composed in a certain character set. ... The Secret Miracle is a short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. ...

Eco spent some time at the University of Toronto while writing the book. The stairs in the monastery's library bear a striking resemblance to those in Robarts Library. Throughout the book, there are Latin quotes, authentic and apocryphal. There are also discussions of the philosophy of Aristotle and of a variety of millenarist heresies, especially those associated with the fraticelli. Numerous other philosophers are referenced throughout the book, often anachronistically, including Wittgenstein. The "poisoned page" theme is in a classic Chinese novel Jin Ping Mei, usually translated into English as The Golden Lotus. The University of Toronto (U of T) is a public research university in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ... The southeast corner of Robarts Library Rear corner of Robarts Library Looking up the side of the Library Lightvector painting of Robarts Library, showing the ambient sky vector blue and the ambient vector of electric lights in yellow. ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Aristotle (disambiguation). ... Millenarianism or millenarism is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society after which all things will be changed in a positive (or sometimes negative or ambiguous) direction. ... A medieval Roman Catholic group which can trace its origins to the Franciscan Spirituals, but which came into being as a separate entity - and problem - for the Church in 1318, when Angelo da Clareno defied the authority of Pope John XXII. Other figures included Michael of Cesena and Peter Olivi. ... Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), pictured here in 1930, made influential contributions to Logic and the philosophy of language, critically examining the task of conventional philosophy and its relation to the nature of language. ... Jin Ping Mei (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; literally The Plum in the Golden Vase, also translated as The Golden Lotus) is a Chinese naturalistic novel composed in the vernacular (baihua) during the late Ming Dynasty, attributed to Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng. ...

To actual history, geography and current science

William of Ockham, who lived during the time of the novel, first put forward the principle known as "Ockham's Razor": often summarised as the dictum that one should always accept as most-likely the simplest explanation that accounts for all the facts (a method used by William of Baskerville in the novel). Occams Razor (also Ockhams Razor or any of several other spellings), is a principle attributed to the 14th century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham that forms the basis of methodological reductionism, also called the principle of parsimony or law of economy. ...

The book describes monastic life in the 14th century. The action takes place at a Benedictine abbey during the controversy surrounding the Apostolic poverty between branches of Franciscans and Dominicans (see Renewed controversy on the question of poverty.) The spirituals abhor wealth, bordering on the Apostolics or Dulcinian heresy. A number of the characters, such as the Inquisitor Bernard Gui and the Minorite Michael of Cesena, are historical figures, though the novel's characterization of them is not always historically accurate. However, Eco notes in a companion book that he had to site the monastery in mountains so it would experience early frosts, in order for that action to take place at a time when Bernard Gui could have been in the area. For the purposes of the plot, he needed a quantity of pig blood, but at that time pigs were not usually slaughtered until a frost had arrived. Later in the year Gui was known to have been away from Italy and could not have participated in the events at the monastery. For the college, see Benedictine College. ... Apostolic poverty is a doctrine professed by various religious orders, primarily those sprung from the mendicant orders of the Middle Ages in direct response to the call for reforms in the Roman Catholic Church. ... Franciscans is the common name used to designate a variety of mendicant religious orders of men or women tracing their origin to Francis of Assisi and following the Rule of St. ... The Order of Friars Minor and other Franciscan movements are disciples of Saint Francis of Assisi. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Apostolici. ... The Dulcinian religious movement was inspired by the Franciscan ideals, influenced by the Joachimites and derived from the Apostolics. ... For other uses, see Heresy (disambiguation). ... An inquisitor was an official in an inquisition, an organisation or program intended to eliminate heresy and other things frowned on by the Roman Catholic Church. ... Bernards Arbor genealogiae regum Francorum, showing consanguinity of the kings of France Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262 â€“ 30 December 1331), also known as Bernardo Gui or Bernardus Guidonis, was an inquisitor of the Dominican Order in the Late Middle Ages during the Medieval Inquisition, Bishop of LodÃ¨ve, and... A minorite is a Franciscan friar, so-called because they believe they are humbler than members of other orders. ... Michael of Cesena (Michele di Cesena or Michele Fuschi) (c. ...

The book also highlights a tension that existed within Christianity during the medieval era: the Spirituals, one faction within the Franciscan order, demanded that the Church should abandon all wealth, and some heretical sects began killing the well-to-do, while the majority of the Franciscans and the clergy took to a broader interpretation of the gospel. Topics in Christianity Movements Â· Denominations Â· Other religions Ecumenism Â· Preaching Â· Prayer Music Â· Liturgy Â· Calendar Symbols Â· Art Â· Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul Â· Church Fathers Constantine Â· Athanasius Â· Augustine Anselm Â· Aquinas Â· Palamas Â· Luther Calvin Â· Wesley Arius Â· Marcion of Sinope Archbishop of Canterbury Â· Catholic Pope Coptic Pope Â· Ecumenical Patriarch Christianity Portal This box: Christianity is...

Adaptations

The Name of The Rose was made into a film in 1986, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Sean Connery as William of Baskerville and Christian Slater as Adso. The Name of the Rose (original title, Der Name der Rose) is a 1986 film by Jean-Jacques Annaud, based on the book of the same name by Umberto Eco. ... Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... Jean-Jacques Annaud Jean-Jacques Annaud (born October 1, 1943) is a French film director. ... Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930) is a retired Scottish actor and producer who is perhaps best known as the first actor to portray James Bond in cinema, starring in seven Bond films. ... Picture of the book in the binding provided by the Folio Society The Name of the Rose, a 1980 novel by Umberto Eco, is a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327 during the papacy of Pope John XXII. The book was also made into a... Christian Slater(born August 18, 1969) is an American actor. ...

A play adaptation in two parts was broadcast by BBC Radio 4 commencing Sunday 16 July 2006 and ending Sunday 23 July 2006. old Radio 4 logo BBC Radio 4 is a UK domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ...

A radio spoof inspired by the film adaptation was made as part of the Creme De La Crime series by Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt on BBC Radio 4.

A Spanish videogame adaptation was released in 1987 under the title La Abadía del Crimen (The Abbey of Crime). A modern remake is underway, and is largely complete. La AbadÃa del Crimen (The Abbey of Crime) is a computer video game programmed in 1988 by Paco MenÃ©ndez based in the novel The Name of the Rose written by Umberto Eco. ... La AbadÃa del Crimen (The Abbey of Crime) is a computer video game programmed in 1988 by Paco MenÃ©ndez based in the novel The Name of the Rose written by Umberto Eco. ...

Trivia

The song "Abbey of Synn", from Ayreon's album Actual Fantasy, is based on The Name of the Rose.
The song "Sign of the Cross" by Iron Maiden is based on The Name of the Rose.^[10] Ayreon ( ) is a project by Dutch composer and musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen. ... Actual Fantasy is an Ayreon album released in 1996. ... Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in the East End of London. ...

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c Christopher Butler. Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction. OUP, 2002. ISBN 978-0-19-280239-2 - see pages 32 and 126 for discussion of the novel.
^ "Postscript to the Name of the Rose", p. 506.
^ "Postscript to the Name of the Rose", printed in The Name of the Rose (Harcourt, Inc., 1984), p. 506.
^ "Postscript to the Name of the Rose", p. 506.
^ "Postscript to the Name of the Rose", p. 506.
^ Name of the Rose: Title and Last Line. Retrieved on 2007-03-15.
^ Eco would have found this reading in, for example, the standard text edited by H.C. Hoskier (London 1929); only the Hiersemann manuscript preserves "Roma." For the verse quoted in this form before Eco, see e.g. Alexander Cooke, An essay on the origin, progress, and decline of rhyming Latin verse (1828), p. 59, and Hermann Adalbert Daniel, Thesaurus hymnologicus sive hymnorum canticorum sequentiarum (1855), p. 290. See further Pepin, Ronald E. "Adso's closing line in The name of the rose." American notes and queries (May-June 1986): 151-152.
^ As Eco wrote in "The Author and his Interpreters", "Thus the title of my novel, had I come across another version of Morlay's poem, could have been The Name of Rome (thus acquiring fascist overtones)."
^ De contemptu mundi copy
^ IRON MAIDEN Frequently Asked Questions, part 1/2; http://www.faqs.org/faqs/music/iron-maiden-faq/part1/

Abbot, later Bishop, Basil Christopher Butler OSB (May 7, 1902â€“September 20, 1986), a convert from the Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church at the age of 26, was a Roman Catholic priest, the 7th Abbot of Downside Abbey, one-time Abbot President of the English Benedictine Congregation... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 74th day of the year (75th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

References

Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 230th day of the year (231st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

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