William Fense Weaver (24 July 1923 – 12 November 2013) was an English language translator of modern Italian literature .
97-636: Weaver was best known for his translations of the work of Umberto Eco , Primo Levi , and Italo Calvino , but translated many other Italian authors over the course of a career that spanned more than fifty years. In addition to prose, he translated Italian poetry and opera libretti , and worked as a critic and commentator on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts . William Weaver was born in Virginia in 1923, and attended boarding school starting at age 12. Educated at Princeton University , he graduated with
194-466: A Benedictine novice , investigates a series of murders at a monastery that is to host an important religious debate. The novel contains many direct or indirect metatextual references to other sources which require the detective work of the reader to "solve". The title is unexplained in the body of the book, but at the end, there is a Latin verse " Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus " [ it ; la ] ( transl. "about
291-612: A B.A. summa cum laude in 1946, followed by postgraduate study at the University of Rome in 1949. Weaver was an ambulance driver in Italy during World War II for the American Field Service , and lived primarily in Italy after the end of the war. Through his friendships with Elsa Morante , Alberto Moravia and others, Weaver met many of Italy's leading authors and intellectuals in Rome in
388-553: A Milan newspaper, it offers a satire of Italy's kickback and bribery culture as well as, among many things, the legacy of fascism . A group of avant-garde artists, painters, musicians and writers, whom he had befriended at RAI, the Neoavanguardia or Gruppo '63, became an important and influential component in Eco's writing career. In 1971, Eco co-founded Versus: Quaderni di studi semiotici (known as VS among Italian academics),
485-506: A blind librarian. In addition, a number of other themes drawn from various of Borges's works are used throughout The Name of the Rose : labyrinths , mirrors, sects, and obscure manuscripts and books. The ending also owes a debt to Borges's short story " Death and the Compass ", in which a detective proposes a theory for the behaviour of a murderer. The murderer learns of the theory and uses it to trap
582-478: A character named John of Burgos. Eco was also inspired by the 19th century Italian novelist Alessandro Manzoni , citing The Betrothed as an example of the specific type of historical novel he purposed to create, in which some of the characters may be made up, but their motivations and actions remain authentic to the period and render history more comprehensible. Throughout the book, there are Latin quotes, authentic and apocryphal. There are also discussions of
679-456: A conspiracy theory. Their conspiracy, which they call "The Plan", is about an immense and intricate plot to take over the world by a secret order descended from the Knights Templar . As the game goes on, the three slowly become obsessed with the details of this plan. The game turns dangerous when outsiders learn of The Plan and believe that the men have really discovered the secret to regaining
776-450: A critical analysis of a popular but unrefined quiz show host, appeared as part of a series of articles by Eco on mass media published in the magazine of the tyre manufacturer Pirelli . In it, Eco, observed that "[Bongiorno] does not provoke inferiority complexes, despite presenting himself as an idol, and the public acknowledge him, by being grateful to him and loving him. He represents an ideal that nobody need strive to reach because everyone
873-406: A heavy armillary sphere . They search the room for the missing book but are unable to locate it. Remigio is discovered at the scene of the crime and taken into custody by Bernard, who accuses the "heretic" of committing all four homicides. Under threat of torture, Remigio confesses. Remigio, Salvatore, and the peasant girl are taken away and assumed to be doomed. In response to the recent tragedies in
970-415: A lesser library. Eco was a professor of semiotics , and employed techniques of metanarrative , partial fictionalization, and linguistic ambiguity to create a world enriched by layers of meaning. The solution to the central murder mystery hinges on the contents of Aristotle 's book on Comedy , which has been lost . In spite of this, Eco speculates on the content and has the characters react to it. Through
1067-464: A meeting with Alexander Genis . Beginning in the early 1990s, Eco collaborated with artists and philosophers such as Enrico Baj , Jean Baudrillard , and Donald Kuspit to publish a number of tongue-in-cheek texts on the imaginary science of 'pataphysics . Eco's fiction has enjoyed a wide audience around the world, with many translations. His novels are full of subtle, often multilingual, references to literature and history. Eco's work illustrates
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#17328450192231164-544: A passion for the Middle Ages and for semiotics, and a very modern pleasure." Gilles Deleuze cites Eco's 1962 book The Open Work approvingly in his seminal 1968 text Difference and Repetition , a book which poststructuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida is said to have also taken inspiration from. In an obituary by the philosopher and literary critic Carlin Romano, meanwhile, Eco is described as having "[become], over time,
1261-588: A postmodern idea that all texts perpetually refer to other texts, rather than external reality, while also harkening back to the medieval notion that citation and quotation of books was inherently necessary to write new stories. The novel ends with irony: as Eco explains in his Postscript to the Name of the Rose , "very little is discovered and the detective is defeated." After unraveling the central mystery in part through coincidence and error, William of Baskerville concludes in fatigue that there "was no pattern." Thus Eco turns
1358-469: A reader would have to lick his fingers in order to turn them. Venantius's body was discovered by Berengar, who, fearing exposure, disposed of it in pig's blood ("blood") before claiming the book and succumbing to its poison ("water"). The book was next found by Severinus, but Jorge manipulated Malachi into killing him before he could pass it on to William (using a metal globe , hence "stars falling"). Malachi died after ignoring Jorge's warning not to investigate
1455-460: A rose that used to exist, all we can learn is its empty name" ). The rose serves as an example of the destiny of all remarkable things. There is a tribute to Jorge Luis Borges , a major influence on Eco, in the character Jorge of Burgos: Borges, like the blind monk Jorge, lived a celibate life consecrated to his passion for books, and also went blind in later life. The labyrinthine library in The Name of
1552-517: A scholarly monograph building on his work on Aquinas. Earning his libera docenza in aesthetics in 1961, Eco was promoted to the position of lecturer in the same subject in 1963, before leaving the University of Turin to take a position as lecturer in Architecture at the University of Milan in 1964. Among his work for a general audience, in 1961 Eco's short essay "Phenomenology of Mike Bongiorno ",
1649-678: A seminar in Timbuktu was followed up with another gathering in Bologna to reflect on the conditions of reciprocal knowledge between East and West. This, in turn, gave rise to a series of conferences in Brussels , Paris and Goa , culminating in Beijing in 2007. The topics of the Beijing conference were "Order and Disorder", "New Concepts of War and Peace", "Human Rights" and "Social Justice and Harmony". Eco presented
1746-626: A semiotic journal. VS is used by scholars whose work is related to signs and signification. The journal's foundation and activities have contributed to semiotics as an academic field in its own right, both in Italy and in the rest of Europe. Most of the well-known European semioticians, including Eco, A. J. Greimas , Jean-Marie Floch, and Jacques Fontanille , as well as philosophers and linguists like John Searle and George Lakoff , have published original articles in VS . His work with Serbian and Russian scholars and writers included thoughts on Milorad Pavić and
1843-419: A single, unequivocal line, the closed text , remains the least rewarding, while texts which are the most active between mind, society and life (open texts) are the liveliest and best—although valuation terminology was not his primary focus. Eco came to these positions through the study of language and from semiotics, rather than from psychology or historical analysis (as did theorists such as Wolfgang Iser , on
1940-499: A threat to God's established order. The second day, another monk, Venantius of Salvemec, is found dead in a vat of pig's blood. He has black stains on his tongue and fingers, suggesting poison. William learns that Adelmo was part of a homosexual love triangle that also involved the librarian, Malachi of Hildesheim, and Malachi's assistant, Berengar of Arundel. The only other monks who knew about these indiscretions were Jorge and Venantius. In spite of Malachi's ban, William and Adso enter
2037-532: A total of fifty-six rooms. Each room has a scroll containing a verse from the Book of Revelation . The first letter of the verse is the letter corresponding to that room. The letters of adjacent rooms, read together, give the name of a region (e.g. Hibernia in the West tower), and those rooms contain books from that region. The geographical regions are: Two rooms have no lettering – the easternmost room, which has an altar, and
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#17328450192232134-612: A twice-monthly newspaper column "La Bustina di Minerva" (Minerva's Matchbook) in the magazine L'Espresso beginning in 1985, with his last column (a critical appraisal of the Romantic paintings of Francesco Hayez ) appearing 27 January 2016. At the time of his death, he was an Emeritus professor at the University of Bologna , where he taught for much of his life. In the 21st century, he has continued to gain recognition for his 1995 essay " Ur-Fascism ", where Eco lists fourteen general properties he believes comprise fascist ideologies. Eco
2231-570: A variety of cultural programming. Following the publication of his first book in 1956, he became an assistant lecturer at his alma mater. In 1958, Eco left RAI and the University of Turin to complete 18 months of compulsory military service in the Italian Army . In 1959, following his return to university teaching, Eco was approached by Valentino Bompiani to edit a series on "Idee nuove" (New Ideas) for his eponymous publishing house in Milan. According to
2328-457: A visiting professor at New York University . In 1971 he took up a position as associate professor at the University of Bologna and spent 1972 as a visiting professor at Northwestern University . Following the publication of A Theory of Semiotics in 1975 , he was promoted to Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna . That same year, Eco stepped down from his position as senior non-fiction editor at Bompiani. From 1977 to 1978 Eco
2425-593: Is a narrative of the rise of Modern-day antisemitism , by way of the Dreyfus affair , The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other important 19th-century events which gave rise to hatred and hostility toward the Jewish people . In 2012, Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière published a book of conversations on the future of information carriers. Eco criticized social networks, saying for example that "Social media gives legions of idiots
2522-465: Is a paraphrased example from Gui's inquisitor's manual, used to warn inquisitors of the manipulative tendencies of heretics. Adso's description of the portal of the monastery is recognizably that of the portal of the church at Moissac, France . Dante Alighieri and his Comedy are mentioned once in passing. There is also a quick reference to a famous "Umberto of Bologna" – Umberto Eco himself. Some historical errors present are most likely part of
2619-643: Is already at his level." Receiving notoriety among the general public thanks to widespread media coverage, the essay was later included in the collection Diario minimo (1963). Over this period, Eco began seriously developing his ideas on the "open" text and on semiotics, writing many essays on these subjects. In 1962 he published Opera aperta (translated into English as "The Open Work"). In it, Eco argued that literary texts are fields of meaning, rather than strings of meaning; and that they are understood as open, internally dynamic and psychologically engaged fields. Literature which limits one's potential understanding to
2716-640: Is associated with the Chinese erotic novel Jin Ping Mei , translated as The Golden Lotus or The Plum in the Golden Vase . Eco seems also to have been aware of Rudyard Kipling 's short story " The Eye of Allah ", which touches on many of the same themes, like optics, manuscript illumination, music, medicine, priestly authority and the Church's attitude to scientific discovery and independent thought, and which also includes
2813-480: Is discovered attempting to cast a primitive love spell on the peasant girl, and Bernard arrests them both for witchcraft and heresy. The fifth day is the day of the disputation. Severinus, the abbey's herbalist, tells William that he has found a "strange book" that demands the friar's attention, but William is unable to investigate the discovery until the disputation has ended. When William and Adso arrive at Severinus's laboratory, they find him dead, his skull crushed by
2910-488: Is pressed to make a very difficult choice, one between his past and his future. He must either abandon his past to live his future or regain his past and sacrifice his future. The Prague Cemetery , Eco's sixth novel, was published in 2010. It is the story of a secret agent who "weaves plots, conspiracies, intrigues and attacks, and helps determine the historical and political fate of the European Continent". The book
3007-498: Is the 1980 debut novel by Italian author Umberto Eco . It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory. It was translated into English by William Weaver in 1983. The novel has sold over 50 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling books ever published. It has received many international awards and accolades, such as
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3104-508: Is the lost second half of Aristotle's Poetics , which discusses the virtues of laughter, which Jorge rejects as dangerous. Jorge confirms William's deductions and justifies himself by holding that the deaths must form part of a divine plan . Two more deaths will complete the sequence of the Seven trumpets: that of the abbot, whom Jorge has trapped in an airless passageway beneath the finis Africae , and that of Jorge himself. He begins consuming
3201-512: The Avignon Papacy and in his Prologue, Adso mentions the election of anti-king Frederick of Austria as a rival claimant to Emperor Louis thirteen years before the story begins. Adso's "Last Page" epilogue describes the Emperor's appointment of Nicholas V as anti-Pope in Rome shortly after Louis IV abandoned reconciliation with John XXII (a decision Adso connects with the disastrous events of
3298-463: The Postscript to the Name of the Rose , Eco claims to have chosen the title "because the rose is a symbolic figure so rich in meanings that by now it hardly has any meaning left". The book's last line, " Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus " translates as: "the rose of old remains only in its name; we possess naked names." The general sense, as Eco pointed out, was that from the beauty of
3395-561: The Strega Prize in 1981 and Prix Medicis Étranger in 1982, and was ranked 14th on Le Monde 's 100 Books of the Century list . In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and his assistant Adso of Melk arrive at a Benedictine abbey in Northern Italy to attend a theological disputation . The abbey is being used as neutral ground in a dispute between Pope John XXII and
3492-664: The nominalist position in the problem of universals , taken by William of Ockham . According to nominalism, universals are bare names: there is not a universal rose, only a bunch of particular flowers that we artificially singled out by naming them " roses" . A further possible inspiration for the title may be a poem by the Mexican poet and mystic Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695): Rosa que al prado, encarnada, te ostentas presuntuosa de grana y carmín bañada: campa lozana y gustosa; pero no, que siendo hermosa también serás desdichada. This poem appears in Eco's Postscript to
3589-513: The Baskervilles – also, Adso's description of William in the beginning of the book resembles, almost word for word, Dr. Watson's description of Sherlock Holmes when he first makes his acquaintance in A Study in Scarlet ) and to William of Ockham (see the next section). The name of the novice, Adso of Melk, refers to Melk Abbey , the site of a famous medieval library. Further, his name echoes
3686-473: The Franciscans over the question of apostolic poverty . The monks of the abbey have recently been shaken by the suspicious death of one of their brothers, Adelmo of Otranto, and the abbot asks William (a former inquisitor ) to investigate the incident. During his inquiries, William has a debate with one of the oldest monks in the abbey, Jorge of Burgos, about the permissibility of laughter, which Jorge regards as
3783-652: The Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences). In September 1962 he married Renate Ramge [ de ] , a German graphic designer and art teacher with whom he had a son and a daughter. Eco divided his time between an apartment in Milan and a vacation house near Urbino . He had a 30,000-volume library in the former and a 20,000-volume library in the latter. Eco died at his Milanese home of pancreatic cancer , from which he had been suffering for two years, on
3880-404: The Middle Ages , art historian Nicholas Penny , meanwhile, accuses Eco of pandering, writing "I suspect that Eco may have first been seduced from intellectual caution, if not modesty, by the righteous cause of 'relevance' (a word much in favour when the earlier of these essays appeared) – a cause which Medievalists may be driven to embrace with particularly desperate abandon." At the other end of
3977-551: The Milan Triennale University, he declared: "I have seen several multimedia works, and I personally collaborated in the drafting of a publication of this type. They gave me a computer on which to run the finished work, but now remotely of just one year this machine is already outdated, rendered obsolete and unusable with the most recent multimedia works." Eco was also a translator: he translated into Italian Raymond Queneau 's Exercices de style (1947). Eco's translation
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4074-432: The Name of the Rose , and is translated into English in "Note 1" of that book as: Red rose growing in the meadow, bravely you vaunt thyself in crimson and carmine bathed: displayed in rich and growing state. But no: as precious as thou may seem, Not happy soon thou shall be. The name of the central character, William of Baskerville, alludes both to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes (compare The Hound of
4171-828: The Quest for the Universal" along the silk trade route from Guangzhou to Beijing. The latter culminated in a book entitled The Unicorn and the Dragon , which discussed the question of the creation of knowledge in China and in Europe . Scholars contributing to this volume were from China, including Tang Yijie , Wang Bin and Yue Daiyun, as well as from Europe : Furio Colombo, Antoine Danchin , Jacques Le Goff , Paolo Fabbri and Alain Rey . Eco published The Limits of Interpretation in 1990. From 1992 to 1993, Eco
4268-496: The Reader , philosopher Roger Scruton , attacking Eco's esoteric tendencies, writes that, "[Eco seeks] the rhetoric of technicality, the means of generating so much smoke for so long that the reader will begin to blame his own lack of perception, rather than the author's lack of illumination, for the fact that he has ceased to see." In his 1986 review of Faith in Fakes and Art and Beauty in
4365-401: The Rose also alludes to Borges's short story " The Library of Babel ". William of Baskerville is a logical-minded Englishman who is a friar and a detective. His name evokes both William of Ockham and Sherlock Holmes (by way of The Hound of the Baskervilles ); several passages which describe him are strongly reminiscent of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 's descriptions of Holmes. The Name of
4462-745: The Rose in 1980 , Eco was awarded the Strega prize in 1981, Italy's most prestigious literary award, receiving the Anghiari prize the same year. The following year, he received the Mendicis prize, and in 1985 the McLuhan Teleglobe prize. In 2005, Eco was honoured with the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, along with Roger Angell . In 2010, Eco was invited to join the Accademia dei Lincei . Eco
4559-407: The Rose was later made into a motion picture , which follows the plot, though not the philosophical and historical themes of the novel and stars Sean Connery , F. Murray Abraham , Christian Slater and Ron Perlman and a made-for-television mini-series . In Foucault's Pendulum (1988), three under-employed editors who work for a minor publishing house decide to amuse themselves by inventing
4656-545: The West from the perspective of non-Westerners (African and Chinese scholars), as defined by their own criteria. Eco developed this transcultural international network based on the idea of Alain le Pichon in West Africa . The Bologna program resulted in the first conference in Guangzhou, China , in 1991 entitled "Frontiers of Knowledge". The first event was soon followed by an Itinerant Euro-Chinese seminar on "Misunderstandings in
4753-568: The abbey (Remigio of Voragine, the abbey's cellarer , and the deformed monk Salvatore). Adso returns to the library alone in the evening. While leaving the library through the kitchen, he is seduced by a peasant girl, with whom he has his first sexual experience. After confessing to William, Adso is absolved, although he still feels guilty. The fourth day, Berengar is found drowned in the abbey's bathhouse. His fingers and tongue bear stains similar to those found on Venantius. The pope's legation now arrives, led by Grand Inquisitor Bernard Gui . Salvatore
4850-468: The abbey's labyrinthine library. They discover that the library contains a hidden room named the finis Africae after the presumed edge of the world, but they are unable to locate it. In the scriptorium , they find a book on Venantius's desk along with some cryptic notes. Someone snatches the book and they pursue to no avail. The third day, the monks are surprised by the disappearance of Berengar and William learns that there are two former Dulcinians in
4947-511: The abbey, Jorge gives an apocalyptic sermon about the coming of the Antichrist . At matins the morning of the sixth day, Malachi drops dead, his fingers and tongue black. The abbot is distraught at William's failure to solve the crimes and orders him to leave the abbey the following day. That night, William and Adso penetrate the library once more and enter the finis Africae by solving Venantius's riddle. They discover Jorge waiting for them in
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#17328450192235044-428: The beauty of the human minds, against Jorge's dogmatism, censoriousness, and pursuit of keeping, no matter the cost, the secrets of the library closed and hidden to the outside world, including the other monks of the abbey. The Name of the Rose has been described as a work of postmodernism . The quote in the novel, "books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told", refers to
5141-512: The book's contents, mentioning scorpions in his delirium ("scorpions"). The series of deaths ostensibly corresponds to the Seven trumpets described in the Book of Revelation , marking the imminent end times ; or, in the mind of William, the deliberate work of a serial killer , but is now unmasked as a chaotic result of Jorge's and Berengar's schemes. The book sought by Adelmo, now back in Jorge's possession,
5238-440: The book's poisoned pages and uses Adso's lantern to start a fire in the library. Adso summons the monks in a futile attempt to extinguish the fire. As the fire consumes the library and spreads to the rest of the abbey, William laments his failure. Confused and defeated, William and Adso escape the abbey. Years later, Adso, now aged, returns to the ruins of the abbey and salvages any remaining scraps and fragments, eventually creating
5335-497: The bulk of the book reminiscing on his life and the adventures that brought him to be stranded. He returned to semiotics in Kant and the Platypus in 1997, a book which Eco reputedly warned his fans away from, saying, "This a hard-core book. It's not a page-turner. You have to stay on every page for two weeks with your pencil. In other words, don't buy it if you are not Einstein." In 2000,
5432-414: The central room on the south tower, the so-called finis Africae , which contains the most heavily guarded books, and can only be entered through a secret door. The entrance to the library is in the central room of the east tower, which is connected to the scriptorium by a staircase. Much attention has been paid to the mystery of what the book's title refers to. In fact, Eco has stated that his intention
5529-411: The concept of intertextuality , or the inter-connectedness of all literary works. Eco cited James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges as the two modern authors who have influenced his work the most. Umberto Eco did not consider hypertexts a valid support for a novel. In his opinion, multimedia added nothing to the cultural value of the work, it only integrated its contents. In 1995, during a presentation at
5626-406: The critical conscience at the center of Italian humanistic culture, uniting smaller worlds like no one before him." In 2017, a retrospective of Eco's work was published by Open Court as the 35th volume in the prestigious Library of Living Philosophers, edited by Sara G. Beardsworth and Randall E. Auxier , featuring essays by 23 contemporary scholars. Following the publication of The Name of
5723-493: The detective. In The Name of the Rose , the librarian Jorge uses William's belief that the murders are based on the Revelation to John to misdirect William, though in Eco's tale, the detective succeeds in solving the crime. The "poisoned page" motif may have been inspired by Alexandre Dumas ' novel La Reine Margot (1845). It was also used in the film Il giovedì (1963) by Italian director Dino Risi . A similar story
5820-473: The end of his life, Eco came to believe that his family name was an acronym of ex caelis oblatus (from Latin: a gift from the heavens). As was the custom at the time, the name had been given to his grandfather (a foundling ) by an official in city hall. In a 2011 interview, Eco explained that a friend happened to come across the acronym on a list of Jesuit acronyms in the Vatican Library , informing him of
5917-477: The forbidden room. William has by now arrived at a solution: Berengar revealed the existence of the finis Africae to Adelmo in exchange for sexual favours. Adelmo, stricken with guilt over this sinful bargain, committed suicide by jumping from the tower ("hail"). Venantius overheard the secret and used it to gain possession of a rare and valuable book that Jorge had hidden in the room. Unbeknownst to him, Jorge had laced its pages with poison, correctly assuming that
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#17328450192236014-721: The influential term " semiological guerrilla ", and influenced the theorization of guerrilla tactics against mainstream mass media culture , such as guerrilla television and culture jamming . Among the expressions used in the essay are "communications guerrilla warfare" and "cultural guerrilla". The essay was later included in Eco's book Faith in Fakes . Eco's approach to semiotics is often referred to as "interpretative semiotics". In his first book-length elaboration, his theory appears in La struttura assente (1968; literally: The Absent Structure ). In 1969 he left to become Professor of Semiotics at Milan Polytechnic , spending his first year as
6111-447: The inquisition scene, the character of Gui asks the cellarer Remigius, "What do you believe?", to which Remigius replies, "What do you believe, my Lord?" Gui responds, "I believe in all that the Creed teaches", and Remigius tells him, "So I believe, my Lord." Bernard then points out that Remigius is not claiming to believe in the Creed, but to believe that he, Gui , believes in the Creed; this
6208-591: The international auxiliary language Esperanto . Baudolino was published in 2000. Baudolino is a much-travelled polyglot Piedmontese scholar who saves the Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates during the sack of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade . Claiming to be an accomplished liar, he confides his history, from his childhood as a peasant lad endowed with a vivid imagination, through his role as adopted son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa , to his mission to visit
6305-411: The kitchen and refectory , the first floor a scriptorium , and the top floor is occupied by the library. The two lower floors are open to all, while only the librarian may enter the last. A catalogue of books is kept in the scriptorium, where manuscripts are read and copied. A monk who wishes to read a book would send a request to the librarian, who, if he thought the request justified, would bring it to
6402-1632: The late 1940s and early 1950s; he paid tribute to them in his anthology Open City (1999). Later in his life, Weaver was a professor of literature at Bard College in New York, and a Bard Center Fellow . He received honorary degrees from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and Trinity College in Connecticut. According to translator Geoffrey Brock , Weaver was too ill to translate Umberto Eco's novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana ( La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana 2004). Weaver died in Rhinebeck , New York. Bassani, Giorgio Bellonci, Maria Berto, Giuseppe Calasso, Roberto Capriolo, Paola Cassola, Carlo De Carlo, Andrea De Céspedes, Alba Elkann, Alain Fallaci, Oriana Festa Campanile, Pasquale Fruttero, Carlo & Lucentini, Franco Gadda, Carlo Emilio La Capria, Raffaele Lavagnino, Alessandra Levi, Primo Loy, Rosetta Luciani, Albino Malerba, Luigi Montale, Eugenio Morante, Elsa Moravia, Alberto Moretti, Ugo Parise, Goffredo Pasolini, Pier Paolo Pirandello, Luigi Rosso, Renzo Sanguineti, Edoardo Silone, Ignazio Soldati, Mario Svevo, Italo Verdi, Giuseppe and Arrigo Boito Zavattini, Cesare Umberto Eco Umberto Eco OMRI (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016)
6499-451: The likely origin of the name. Umberto's father urged him to become a lawyer, but he entered the University of Turin (UNITO) , writing his thesis on the aesthetics of medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas under the supervision of Luigi Pareyson , for which he earned his Laurea degree in philosophy in 1954. After graduating, Eco worked for the state broadcasting station Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) in Milan, producing
6596-503: The literary artifice, whose contextualization is documented in the pages of the book preceding the Prologue, in which the author states that the manuscript on which the current Italian translation was later carried out contained interpolations due to different authors from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era. Eco also personally reported some errors and anachronisms present in various editions of
6693-790: The lost treasure of the Templars. In 1988, Eco founded the Department of Media Studies at the University of the Republic of San Marino , and in 1992 he founded the Institute of Communication Disciplines at the University of Bologna, later founding the Higher School for the Study of the Humanities at the same institution. In 1988, at the University of Bologna, Eco created an unusual program called Anthropology of
6790-404: The modernist quest for finality, certainty and meaning on its head, leaving the nominal plot—that of a detective story—broken, the series of deaths following a chaotic pattern of multiple causes, accident, and arguably without inherent meaning. The mystery revolves around the abbey library, situated in a fortified tower—the aedificium . This structure has three floors—the ground floor contains
6887-456: The motif of this lost and possibly suppressed book which might have aestheticized the farcical, the unheroic and the skeptical, Eco also makes an ironically slanted plea for tolerance and against dogmatic or self-sufficient metaphysical truths – an angle which reaches the surface in the final chapters. In this regard, the conclusion mimics a novel of ideas , with William representing rationality, investigation, logical deduction, empiricism and also
6984-416: The mythical realm of Prester John . Throughout his retelling, Baudolino brags about his ability to swindle and tell tall tales, leaving the historian (and the reader) unsure of just how much of his story was a lie. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005) is about Giambattista Bodoni , an old bookseller specializing in antiques who emerges from a coma with only some memories to recover his past. Bodoni
7081-526: The narrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Watson (omitting the first and last letters). The blind librarian Jorge of Burgos is a nod to 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 " is an inspiration for the secret library in Eco's book. Another of Borges's stories, " The Secret Miracle ", features
7178-566: The night of 19 February 2016. From 2008 to the time of his death at the age of 84, he was a professor emeritus at the University of Bologna , where he had taught since 1971. Ten essays on methods of abductive inference in Poe 's Dupin , Doyle 's Holmes , Peirce and many others, 236 pages. (Art by Eugenio Carmi) The Name of the Rose The Name of the Rose ( Italian : Il nome della rosa [il ˈnoːme della ˈrɔːza] )
7275-446: The novel until the revision of 2011: Moreover, still present in the Note before the Prologue, in which Eco tries to place the liturgical and canonical hours: If it is assumed, as logical, that Eco referred to the local mean time , the estimate of the beginning of the hour before dawn and the beginning of Vespers (sunset), so those in the final lines ("dawn and sunset around 7.30 and 4.40 in
7372-517: The novel's theological conference). A number of the characters, such as Bernard Gui , Ubertino of Casale and the Franciscan Michael of Cesena , are historical figures, though Eco's characterization of them is not always historically accurate. His portrayal of Bernard Gui in particular has been widely criticized by historians as a caricature; Edward Peters has stated that the character is "rather more sinister and notorious ... than he ever
7469-426: The one hand, and Hans Robert Jauss , on the other). In his 1964 book Apocalittici e integrati , Eco continued his exploration of popular culture, analyzing the phenomenon of mass communication from a sociological perspective. From 1965 to 1969, he was Professor of Visual Communications at the University of Florence , where he gave the influential lecture "Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare", which coined
7566-556: The opening lecture. Among those giving presentations were anthropologists Balveer Arora, Varun Sahni , and Rukmini Bhaya Nair from India, Moussa Sow from Africa, Roland Marti and Maurice Olender from Europe, Cha Insuk from Korea , and Huang Ping and Zhao Tinyang from China. Also on the program were scholars from the fields of law and science including Antoine Danchin , Ahmed Djebbar and Dieter Grimm. Eco's interest in east–west dialogue to facilitate international communication and understanding also correlates with his related interest in
7663-539: 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. This text has also been translated as "Yesterday's rose stands only in name, we hold only empty names." 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, but Eco
7760-533: 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 book describes monastic life in the 14th century. The action takes place at a Benedictine abbey during the controversy surrounding the doctrines about absolute poverty of Christ and apostolic poverty between branches of Franciscans and Dominicans ; (see renewed controversy on
7857-515: The publisher, he became aware of Eco through his short pamphlet of cartoons and verse Filosofi in libertà (Philosophers in Freedom, or Liberated Philosophers), which had originally been published in a limited print run of 550 under the James Joyce -inspired pseudonym Daedalus. That same year, Eco published his second book, Sviluppo dell'estetica medievale ( The Development of Medieval Aesthetics ),
7954-678: The question of poverty ). The setting was inspired by monumental Saint Michael's Abbey in Susa Valley , Piedmont and visited by Umberto Eco. The book highlights tensions 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, such as the Dulcinians , began killing
8051-585: The right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots." From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and Interpretation (2014). Numero Zero was published in 2015. Set in 1992 and narrated by Colonna, a hack journalist working on
8148-405: The scriptorium. Finally, the library is in the form of a labyrinth, whose secret only the librarian and the assistant librarian know. The aedificium has four towers at the four cardinal points, and the top floor of each has seven rooms on the outside, surrounding a central room. There are another eight rooms on the outer walls, and sixteen rooms in the centre of the maze. Thus, the library has
8245-402: The spectrum, Eco has been praised for his levity and encyclopedic knowledge, which allowed him to make abstruse academic subjects accessible and engaging. In a 1980 review of The Name of the Rose , literary critic and scholar Frank Kermode refers to Theory of Semiotics , as "a vigorous but difficult treatise", finding Eco's novel, "a wonderfully interesting book – a very odd thing to be born of
8342-474: The well-to-do, while the majority of the Franciscans and the clergy took to a broader interpretation of the gospel. Also in the background is the conflict between Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV and Pope John XXII , with the Pope condemning the Spirituals and the Emperor supporting them as proxies in a larger power struggle at the time over authorities claimed by both the Church and Empire. The novel takes place during
8439-463: Was a visiting professor at Harvard University and from 2001 to 2002, at St Anne's College, Oxford . The Island of the Day Before (1994) was Eco's third novel. The book, set in the 17th century, is about a man stranded on a ship within sight of an island which he believes is on the other side of the international date-line. The main character is trapped by his inability to swim and instead spends
8536-478: Was a visiting professor at Yale University and then at Columbia University . He returned to Yale from 1980 to 1981, and Columbia in 1984. During this time he completed The Role of the Reader (1979) and Semiotics and Philosophy of Language (1984). Eco drew on his background as a medievalist in his first novel The Name of the Rose (1980), a historical mystery set in a 14th-century monastery. Franciscan friar William of Baskerville , aided by his assistant Adso,
8633-552: Was an Italian medievalist , philosopher, semiotician , novelist, cultural critic , and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel The Name of the Rose , a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory , as well as Foucault's Pendulum , his 1988 novel which touches on similar themes. Eco wrote prolifically throughout his life, with his output including children's books, translations from French and English, in addition to
8730-615: Was an accountant before the government called him to serve in three wars. During World War II , Umberto and his mother, Giovanna (Bisio), moved to a small village in the Piedmontese mountainside. His village was liberated in 1945, and he was exposed to American comic books, the European Resistance, and the Holocaust. Eco received a Salesian education and made references to the order and its founder in his works and interviews. Towards
8827-857: Was an honorary fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford and Associate member of the Royal Academy of Belgium In 2014 he was awarded the Gutenberg Prize of the International Gutenberg Society and the City of Mainz . During his university studies, Eco ceased to believe in God and left the Catholic Church , later helping co-found the Italian skeptic organization Comitato Italiano per il Controllo delle Affermazioni sulle Pseudoscienze (Italian Committee for
8924-442: Was awarded honorary doctorate degrees for the first time by the University of Leuven , then by the University of Odense in 1986, Loyola University Chicago in 1987, the University of Liege in 1989, the University of Glasgow in 1990, the University of Kent in 1992, Indiana University Bloomington in 1992, University of Tartu in 1996, Rutgers University in 2002, and the University of Belgrade in 2009. Additionally, Eco
9021-560: Was born on 5 January 1932 in the city of Alessandria , in Piedmont in northern Italy. The spread of Italian Fascism throughout the region influenced his childhood. At the age of ten, he received the First Provincial Award of Ludi Juveniles after responding positively to the young Italian fascist writing prompt of "Should we die for the glory of Mussolini and the immortal destiny of Italy?" His father, Giulio, one of thirteen children,
9118-504: Was historically", and he and others have argued that the character is actually based on the grotesque portrayals of inquisitors and Catholic prelates more broadly in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic literature , such as Matthew Gregory Lewis 's The Monk (1796). Additionally, part of the novel's dialogue is derived from Gui's inquisitor's manual, the Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis . In
9215-479: Was not aware at the time of the text more commonly printed in modern editions, in which the reference is to Rome ( Roma ), not to a rose ( rosa ). 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 "Where now is Regulus, or Romulus, or Remus? / Primordial Rome abides only in its name; we hold only naked names". The title may also be an allusion to
9312-457: Was published under the title Esercizi di stile in 1983. He was also the translator of Sylvie , a novella by Gérard de Nerval . As an academic studying philosophy, semiotics, and culture, Eco divided critics as to whether his theorizing should be seen as brilliant or an unnecessary vanity project obsessing over minutiae, while his fiction writing stunned critics with its simultaneous complexity and popularity. In his 1980 review of The Role of
9409-435: Was to find a "totally neutral title". In one version of the story, 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 . In another version of the story, 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." In
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