# Reading > Forum Book Club >  February / Italy Reading: The Name of the Rose

## Scheherazade

In February, we will be reading Umberto Eco's _The Name of the Rose_.

Please post your comments here.




> Eco, an Italian philosopher and best-selling novelist, is a great polymathic fabulist in the tradition of Swift, Voltaire, Joyce, and Borges. The Name of the Rose, which sold 50 million copies worldwide, is an experimental medieval whodunit set in a monastic library. In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate heresy among the monks in an Italian abbey; a series of bizarre murders overshadows the mission. Within the mystery is a tale of books, librarians, patrons, censorship, and the search for truth in a period of tension between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. The book became a hit despite some obscure passages and allusions. This deftly abridged version, ably performed by Theodore Bikel, retains the genius of the original but is far more accessible. Foucault's Pendulum, Eco's second novel, is a bit irritating. The plot consists of three Milan editors who concoct a series on the occult for an unscrupulous publishing house that Eco ridicules mercilessly. The work details medieval phenomena including the Knights Templar, an ancient order with a scheme to dominate the world. Unfortunately, few listeners will make sense of this failed thriller. The Island of the Day Before is an ingenious tale that begins with a shipwreck in 1643. Roberta della Griva survives and boards another ship only to find himself trapped. Flashbacks give us Renaissance battles, the French court, spies, intriguing love affairs, and the attempt to solve the problem of longitude. It's a world of metaphors and paradoxes created by an entertaining scholar. Tim Curry, who also narrates Foucault's Pendulum, provides a spirited narration. Ultimately, libraries should avoid Foucault's Pendulum, but educated patrons will form an eager audience for both The Name of the Rose and The Island of the Day Before.


http://www.amazon.com/Name-Rose-Ever...1906450&sr=8-2

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## Wakaba

Anyone else started reading yet? Just got through the first chapter myself, haven't had much time. Did anyone else find it odd that the priests greeted each other with a kiss on the lips, rather than the cheek? I found myself wondering if this used to be common and when it changed?

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## Tersely

So far I've read the first day. I found it strange too how "friendly" they are at greetings. I think it was Adso whos greeted by Ubertino and he said "My master introduced me, and the old man stroked my cheek, with a warm, almost burning hand." 
That doesn't come off as a common gesture of todays standards. 
I guess the friendly english handshake hasn't been invented yet.  :Brow:

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## JBI

That was common practice back then. I think Eco did a great job, since he perhaps is the most qualified person at doing this, at recreating the medieval times.

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## Tersely

Just a side note...I wish they would have a little footnote translator. There's alot of Latin and they speak it back and forth mixing it with the translation. Its good so far...just makes me feel like I'm missing something.

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## Hira

Yeah, I am having a bit of a problem with Latin too. So if anyone knows Latin, what does this 



> Monasterium sine libris, the abbot recited, pensively, est sicut civitas opibus, castrum sine numeris, coquina sine suppellectili, mensa cine cibis, hortus sine herbis, partum sine floribus, arbor sine foliis


and this




> Omnis mundi creatura
> Quasi liber et picture
> Nobis est in speculum


mean? 

I have just read around 40 pages at the moment, till the meeting of William and Abo. I do find it interesting, the references to the Anti-Christ and the fact that in almost every age, people consider their own times to be the darkest. The End is Nigh story. 

And always, always look back to the glory of the past.

Anyway, I am loving the book at the moment. With the way Eco is re-creating the medieval world as JBI says. My pace is very slow though. Very very slow.

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## Virgil

I'm going to start reading later this week. I can't wait actually.

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## ntropyincarnate

ok...so as far as I can figure out (haven't had time to work on the other one yet) 

Omnis mundi creatura
Quasi liber et picture
Nobis est in speculum

means

All of the created world is, as it were, a book, and portrayed to us as if in a mirror.

don't count on that being correct though, I'm only in Latin 3, I still have a lot to learn...

so the other one was easier when I actually looked at it, I couldn't figure out what suppellectili is but I got most of the rest.

"A monastery without books is like a citizen without work, a camp without numbers (doesn't make sense, but that's what it means), a kitchen without (suppellectili), a table without food, a garden without herbs, a meadow without flowers, a tree without leaves..."

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## Tersely

> so the other one was easier when I actually looked at it, I couldn't figure out what suppellectili is but I got most of the rest.
> 
> "A monastery without books is like a citizen without work, a camp without numbers (doesn't make sense, but that's what it means), a kitchen without (suppellectili), a table without food, a garden without herbs, a meadow without flowers, a tree without leaves..."


I wish they would have translated it out. That itself is poetic.

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## Wakaba

anyone else get bored/lost with the description of the Aedificium, at the first abbey?

and im not a mountaineer or anything but camp without numbers may have something to do with numbering such as Everest camp 1,2,3, and 4, with camps along the way tothe summit?

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## ntropyincarnate

I was so lost on that description, but for some reason it was incredibly funny to read aloud. 

I looked up "castrum" and "numero" again for alternate translations, and I found something that makes a little bit more sense: "Armies without ranks."

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## Tersely

I was lost too. It kept jumping around to different descriptions and I couldn't tell what he was trying to say. I like the arugement on whether Jesus ever laughed and is laughter evil and sinful...it's something I never thought about.

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## Scheherazade

> Just a side note...I wish they would have a little footnote translator. There's alot of Latin and they speak it back and forth mixing it with the translation. Its good so far...just makes me feel like I'm missing something.


When I read the book, I felt the same way too, Tersely. Footnotes would have made the reading more enjoyable.

I liked most of the descriptions and especially the parts providing political and historical information. It is amazing to see that politics have been dirty from the start, even within the Church.

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## Virgil

> When I read the book, I felt the same way too, Tersely. Footnotes would have made the reading more enjoyable.
> 
> I liked most of the descriptions and especially the parts providing political and historical information. It is amazing to see that politics have been dirty from the start, even within the Church.


Governemnt, church, school board, family get to together - politics is always dirty.  :Nod:   :Smile:

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## B-Mental

This book is a learned look at the life of wisdom...please read and participate...I will too. B

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## Scheherazade

> Governemnt, church, school board, family get to together - politics is always dirty.


Even on Forums, one might add!  :Wink:

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## Virgil

> Even on Forums, one might add!


 :FRlol:   :FRlol:  Yes, that is true. Hey what's with the smilie menu. It seems all screwed up.

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## Scheherazade

The smilie menu seems fine at my end?

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## Tersely

> When I read the book, I felt the same way too, Tersely. Footnotes would have made the reading more enjoyable.
> 
> I liked most of the descriptions and especially the parts providing political and historical information. It is amazing to see that politics have been dirty from the start, even within the Church.


The more I read the more I'm was getting used to the language. It really was pretty enjoyable.

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## Hira

_Was_ enjoyable? Means you've read the entire book? Gosh I am still on page 78, lol. I do still find these Latin phrases a bit disconcerting, popping up like that when I don't really have the means or the patience to write them down or look them up. But it is a wonderful read so far.




> ok...so as far as I can figure out (haven't had time to work on the other one yet) 
> 
> Omnis mundi creatura
> Quasi liber et picture
> Nobis est in speculum
> 
> means
> 
> All of the created world is, as it were, a book, and portrayed to us as if in a mirror.
> ...


Thanks ntropy! Suppellectili is utensils or so they say over here




> A monastery without books . . . is like a city without prosperity, a fortress without troops, a kitchen without utensils, a table without food, a garden without herbs, a meadow without flowers, a tree without leaves

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## Tersely

> _Was_ enjoyable? Means you've read the entire book? Gosh I am still on page 78, lol. I do still find these Latin phrases a bit disconcerting, popping up like that when I don't really have the means or the patience to write them down or look them up. But it is a wonderful read so far.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks ntropy! Suppellectili is utensils or so they say over here



I did...I read over night and into most of the day...its what happens when you have too much free time. I'm thinking on going back and re-reading it in maybe a week and taking more time. I'm sure it'll be better, just the Latin threw me off.

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## Hira

Cool! That you are re-reading now, it is always better on a second read! Try the link in my post above (or here is the main page), it has some of the Latin explained.

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## Virgil

I started last night. I'll start posting some thoughts when I've read a 100 pages or so.

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## NEDJ293

Wow It's Been A Long Time Since I've Read This Book, Finally I Have A Reason To Pick It Up And Read It Again...

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## Hira

I am on the chapter Nones -Third Day, I really did like this chapter and especially where William is talking of the lepers etc., of how exclusion of a set of people leads to discontent. I like this line and others connected with it




> "Scratch the heresy and you will find the leper"


I am really liking the book! So much that I committed the unforgivable sin of reading while having a test tommorow, but I have done that so many times even remorse seems useless.




> I started last night. I'll start posting some thoughts when I've read a 100 pages or so.


Would be glad to read your thoughts on this.

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## Virgil

I'm about fifty pages in. I don't have time to post thoughts today. This is my second reading of it, so I am seeing so much more. I've really gotten into it, so I decided to order a book that explains a lot of the mysterious passgaes and translates the latin. It's called _The Key to The Name of the Rose_. This is it off of Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Key-Name-Rose-...2652859&sr=8-4. I've gotten so interested I thought that this was a good time to really study the work in detail. I ordered it last night and should come in sometime next week. I'll be glad to type out translations for passages, if it doesn't become to exhausting. But I do have certain thoughts right now, and I'll try to post them shortly.

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## Hira

Yeah, I heard about the book, will see if I can find it. Would be so great if you type it out or at least as much as you can!

I was also wondering if the history in the book is all true or is some of it fabricated?

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## Virgil

> Yeah, I heard about the book, will see if I can find it. Would be so great if you type it out or at least as much as you can!
> 
> I was also wondering if the history in the book is all true or is some of it fabricated?


I spent a little time last year learning the history of the middle ages, and while I'm no expert the points I remember that have come up are accurate so far.

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## Etienne

> I spent a little time last year learning the history of the middle ages, and while I'm no expert the points I remember that have come up are accurate so far.


Eco is a specialist in Medieval philosophy and semiotics at the University of Bologna, so he does know his way with Middle-Ages and the whole context the book is set in. The historical context is in fact very precise, a conflict between the Franciscans and the Pope, instigated by Guillaume of Ockham about the wealth of the Pope. I believe Guillaume of Baskerville (the name Guillaume was chosen by Eco as a reference to Ockham as well) refers to Ockham as his friend in the book, but Baskerville also represents Ockham.

So I do suggest to read about this particular political, theological and historical context.

EDIT: Replace Guillaume by William, which is the English version of the same name.

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## Hira

Thanks for the info! I read this too which was very helpful. Hey Virgil, could you suggest any online reading for this?

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## NEDJ293

Mors est quies viatoris, finis est omnis laboris

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## JBI

Keep in mind this is a translation. The Italian, I am sure, has a completely different feel, and I bet the Latin doesn't feel as out of place, and probably can be deciphered from just knowing the vernacular.

Oh, and Baskerville is also a reference to Sherlock Holmes, if no one mentioned it yet.

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## Hira

Yes, there is a bit over here related to that.

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## Janine

I have good news - I am listening to the audio tapes and I like the book so far very much. Funny, I keep thinking 'is William a sort of Sherlock Holmes?' I guess I was not that far off in my thinking. I like all the little graphic details. I have only listened to one and a half sides of the first tape. It is captivating and keeping my interesting. The narration is great, so I am happy to be listening to it - it is so entertaining.

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## papayahed

The very first chapter had me worried this was a schlocky Sherlock Holmes story, when he was talking about the horse.

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## Niamh

I'm a few chapters into it. I love all the discriptives.

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## Janine

> Yes, there is a bit over here related to that.


*Hira,* this article is so interesting. Thanks for looking it up for us. It might benefit a few of us who drew comparisons to Sherlock Holmes, to read this, if you haven't already.  :Thumbs Up:

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## Virgil

Ok, so here are some of my initial thoughts on the novel. 

When I read the novel years ago, I read The Name of the Rose as a novel that stands in contradistinction to Dante’s The Divine Comedy. The novel is set in the middle ages, but it is clearly written in the 20th century, so there is a ironic stance between the values of the middle ages and those of the author. Not just values but the whole conception of how the world works, the world view or what the Germans call, Weltanschauung. In Paradiso, Dante (the author) has Beatrice explain to Dante (the character) how the world works:




> “All things created have an order
> in themselves, and this begets the form
> that lets the universe resemble God.
> 
> “Here the higher creatures see the imprint 
> of the eternal Worth, the end 
> for which the pattern was itself set forth.
> (l.103-108, Hollander and Hollander trans.)


Dante’s world view, and that of the middle ages, is that all things work in an order and reflect God. I say that The Name of the Rose stands in contradistinction to Dante because the world in the novel, despite the character’s perceptions, doesn’t work where all things reflect order or lead to God. Character’s, other than William of Baskerville, see a rational organization to events. Notice how Adso at the end of Prime on the first day views the Aedificium:




> For architecture, among all the arts, is the one that most boldly tries to reproduce the one that most boldly tries to reproduce in its rhythm the order of the universe, which the ancients called “kosmos,” that is to say ornate, since it is like a great animal on whom there shine the perfection and the proportion of all its members.


Consider this when you see what happens to the Aedificium at the end of the novel.

William, in contrast, sees the world through empiricism, not through telos, the philosophy that all things act toward a predestined end (teleology). William is associated with Sherlock Holmes (Baskerville being a Holmes story). And yes Papaya, on its surface this is a "shlocky" (ha, I love that word :Smile:  ) Sherlock rip-off. William’s philosophic mentor is Roger Bacon, perhaps arguably a proto-empiricist. Empiricism is the Enlightenment philosophy that one has to observe nature to learn it. One can’t expect to know God’s end and back out a rationale for nature. And no one represents that empirical mind better than the character of Sherlock Holmes, who sees events and is able to deduce facts from observations. William works contrary to the way anone in the Middle Ages would have worked. It is an ironic undercuting of the values of the Middle Ages.

That is how I understood the novel when I read it many years ago. But I think I have to qualify this reading. Not only is Eco writing in contradistinction to the world view of the Middle Ages, but he’s also writing in contradistinction to the modern world view. I was tipped off on this when I recently read that Eco does not see himself as a modernist, but as a post-modernist. And then I started to see a pattern. Yes, William deduces correctly certain things, but at times he stumbles into a correct answer that has no logical basis on empirical evidence. Notice how when he and Adso approach the Abbey and then come across the monks looking for the stray horse. Yes William deduces the size of the horse and where he has strayed to by observation, but then he also tells the men the name of the horse, “Brunellus” and that it’s a dark horse. Well, wait a second. That’s not observation, but luck. He happens to be right but there is a disconnect with any rational thought process. And so I think this follows throughout the novel. Eco is undercutting both the world view of the Middle Ages and that of the Enlightenment simultaneously, and presenting a universe that follows the non-empiricism of quantum mechanics and relativity. 

Remember this, Eco is a expert in semiotics, the philosophy of how one interprets signs, the cognitive process of interpreting the world. The Middle Ages essentially looked at signs as ends of God’s purpose. The Enlightenment looked at signs as things to logically figure out as ends in themselves. Post-Modern looks at the world and can’t connect information to a logical ends.

That's how I see the philosophic underpinnings of the novel. Of course there's much more.

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## Etienne

Virgil, I think you have to take into account the difference in philosophical views of a man like Dante and a man like Ockham. Philosophical views during the Middle-Ages were far from being homogeneous. At University we had a lecture by one of the greatest specialist of Ockham, who made a small parenthesis about The Name of the Rose. Eco's speciality also embraces Ockham very directly, so I would think twice before coming to such conclusions.

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## Virgil

> Virgil, I think you have to take into account the difference in philosophical views of a man like Dante and a man like Ockham. Philosophical views during the Middle-Ages were far from being homogeneous. At University we had a lecture by one of the greatest specialist of Ockham, who made a small parenthesis about The Name of the Rose. Eco's speciality also embraces Ockham very directly, so I would think twice before coming to such conclusions.


Yes, I'm not sure what to make of Ockham. Can you sumarize his ideas, especially as to how they relate to this novel? I've looked them up but i can't seem to fit it in.

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## Kent Edwins

Wish I had my copy up at campus so I could participate more fully, but I don't.

Anyway, as a bit of a medieval history geek and someone who was raised in Christian doctrine, I found this book to be fascinating. Eco speaks truth on many levels, all while telling a story that entertains the nerdiest levels of my personality. I particularly remember the section where "Ado" has relationship with a woman whom he never sees again. Great book, great choice to read. However, I'm not sure what I like better. This, or Baudolino. Everyone who liked this should read Baudolino, by the way.

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## Etienne

If you don't mind I'll need to take some time to prepare something like this that is clear, and I have a work to finish revising for tomorrow. I haven't read The Name of the Rose yet, so I won't be able to link Ockham directly to the book, but I can assure you from the mouth of specialists, that it is rather accurate in term of philosophical views. I'll try to prepare something short about Ockham and also about Dante. But simplifying medieval philosophers out of their philosophical context (this means without referring directly to other philosophers, explaining a lot of more technical terms, etc.) need a mastery which I don't have in the subject (there is a big difference between understanding and teaching, and I don't want to write too quickly and write wrong things or much too unclear things) but I'll gladly try do it. I believe maybe even a side discussion in the Philosophical writings section would be interesting, if some people are willing to discuss, understand and contribute, perhaps even some kind of philosopher's book club-like thing?

Quickly, Dante and Ockham were rather close, in their general views, but there is some important distinctions to make (I believe for example that you concluded perhaps too generally and not accurately about Dante). But this "empiricist" epiphet that you gave to Ockham is accurate but it is also accurate to Dante, but again this term has a broader meaning in the context of medieval philosophy.

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## Janine

Quote by Etienne:



> I believe maybe even a side discussion in the Philosophical writings section would be interesting, if some people are willing to discuss, understand and contribute, perhaps even some kind of philosopher's book club-like thing?


I think this would be a good idea because the majority of us who are reading the book might not know anything about Ockham or Dante or any of the really heavy philosophy so a sideline discussion on this would be better. I already feel a bit lost in the discussion.

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## Niamh

> Keep in mind this is a translation. The Italian, I am sure, has a completely different feel, and I bet the Latin doesn't feel as out of place, and probably can be deciphered from just knowing the vernacular.
> 
> Oh, and Baskerville is also a reference to Sherlock Holmes, if no one mentioned it yet.


yeah the first thing that went through my head was "hound of the baskerville"

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## Virgil

> If you don't mind I'll need to take some time to prepare something like this that is clear, and I have a work to finish revising for tomorrow. I haven't read The Name of the Rose yet, so I won't be able to link Ockham directly to the book, but I can assure you from the mouth of specialists, that it is rather accurate in term of philosophical views. I'll try to prepare something short about Ockham and also about Dante. But simplifying medieval philosophers out of their philosophical context (this means without referring directly to other philosophers, explaining a lot of more technical terms, etc.) need a mastery which I don't have in the subject (there is a big difference between understanding and teaching, and I don't want to write too quickly and write wrong things or much too unclear things) but I'll gladly try do it. I believe maybe even a side discussion in the Philosophical writings section would be interesting, if some people are willing to discuss, understand and contribute, perhaps even some kind of philosopher's book club-like thing?
> 
> Quickly, Dante and Ockham were rather close, in their general views, but there is some important distinctions to make (I believe for example that you concluded perhaps too generally and not accurately about Dante). But this "empiricist" epiphet that you gave to Ockham is accurate but it is also accurate to Dante, but again this term has a broader meaning in the context of medieval philosophy.


If you haven't read the novel, I can't see how you can relate the philosophies of Dante and William of Occam here as they relate to the novel. What are you going to do, give us the complete understanding of Dante and Occam? There are librarie shelves filled with whole books on the subect.

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## Janine

> yeah the first thing that went through my head was "hound of the baskerville"


Yes, I agree and as I listen to the book on tape, I noticed a few references to dogs and vicious hounds in the beginning of the story as William proceeds with his investigation and thought - wow, "Hound of the Baskerviles". I will have to look up the passages to quote. Does anyone know if the book is available online - the text? *Niamh,* did you read the article that *Hira* posted from Wikepedia. It was quite interesting to note the parallels of the two - Holmes and William of Baskerville. First thing went through my head when I began listening was this guy acts just like Sherlock Holmes or thinks just like him.

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## Etienne

> If you haven't read the novel, I can't see how you can relate the philosophies of Dante and William of Occam here as they relate to the novel.


Is the relation to the novel vital? And that's why I proposed to get this somewhere else than here. Besides Ockham's philosophy is quite well represented (it is a novel, not a philosophical work though), I can't judge for myself, but I'll rely on Eco who is great academic of a subject in which Ockham is probably the most or one of the most important figures, and Claude Panaccio (who mentionned the Name of the Rose in a lecture about Ockham last semester) who is renown as one, if not the greatest, scholar of Ockham in the world. After that, you argue with them.




> What are you going to do, give us the complete understanding of Dante and Occam?


Eww... even if I wished I couldn't even get close to that, I haven't studied either philosophy in particular, I've merely scratched the surfaced, and that's probably an understatement.




> There are librarie shelves filled with whole books on the subect.


http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-name-of-the-rose/

Well then, discussion's over folks, close the topic: there are books on the subject.

I'm sorry, I corrected you in this topic, perhaps you took offense on that, I merely wanted to start a discussion as the subject grabbed my attention (what's best to improve one's knowledge than to delve into a subject and write -in vulgarization- about it?), and probably other's, I only wanted to offer a starting point to a discussion. If you think that's reasonable, then that's exactly what my previous post said.

At least I don't talk through my hat like you did, instead I want to discuss seriously about it, and what? Here's your answer? Then don't join in the discussion and continue to believe that Eco knows less about Ockham than you, and continue taking over-simplistic and unidimensional conclusions on the whole medieval thought based on 4 lines by Dante. You are so typical. But if you tell me what your problem is, exactly?

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## Virgil

> Is the relation to the novel vital? And that's why I proposed to get this somewhere else than here. Besides Ockham's philosophy is quite well represented (it is a novel, not a philosophical work though), I can't judge for myself, but I'll rely on Eco who is great academic of a subject in which Ockham is probably the most or one of the most important figures, and Claude Panaccio (who mentionned the Name of the Rose in a lecture about Ockham last semester) who is renown as one, if not the greatest, scholar of Ockham in the world. After that, you argue with them.


Ok as you wish. It just seems like a lot of work. 




> I'm sorry, I corrected you in this topic, perhaps you took offense on that


 :FRlol:  No I didn't take offense. I just found it kind of weird that you would explain the novel when you haven't even read it. My first thought was , well maybe we can have an interesting discussion on this. But then you say you've never read the book. 




> I merely wanted to start a discussion as the subject grabbed my attention (what's best to improve one's knowledge than to delve into a subject and write -in vulgarization- about it?), and probably other's, I only wanted to offer a starting point to a discussion. If you think that's reasonable, then that's exactly what my previous post said.
> 
> At least I don't talk through my hat like you did, instead I want to discuss seriously about it,


Ok, ok, go right ahead. I was sincerely asking about William of Occam a few posts up. 





> You are so typical. But if you tell me what your problem is, exactly?


Well, I guess we got off on the wrong foot. Let's move on and perhaps we can find some common ground.  :Smile:

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## islandclimber

I read "the name of the rose" a few years ago, and just in browsing through it again, I remember now, how much parts of the story reminded me of Borges "labyrinths"... especially "the library"... not quite the same, well not the same at all for that matter... but it just seemed to me, to always conjure up images of Borges' work... anyone else find this, or am I crazy? really I could be, so be honest? haha

just think of the searching and the passages and the forms, all so important in Eco's descriptions, as though they came right out of Borges...

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## bazarov

I am so sorry that I had to miss this discussion  :Frown:  Stupid exams!

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## Hira

> Yes, I agree and as I listen to the book on tape, I noticed a few references to dogs and vicious hounds in the beginning of the story as William proceeds with his investigation and thought - wow, "Hound of the Baskerviles". I will have to look up the passages to quote. Does anyone know if the book is available online - the text? *Niamh,* did you read the article that *Hira* posted from Wikepedia. It was quite interesting to note the parallels of the two - Holmes and William of Baskerville. First thing went through my head when I began listening was this guy acts just like Sherlock Holmes or thinks just like him.


Yep, you can find it over bibliomania.com/0/0/182/1031/frameset.html here.

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## Janine

> Yep, you can find it over bibliomania.com/0/0/182/1031/frameset.html here.


*Hira,* you must have misunderstood me. I meant the text to "The Name of the Rose". I can't find that anywhere online. But thanks for the link to the other book; might come in handy someday. Right now I am reading too much to read that, also.

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## Hira

Lolol :Biggrin:  Okay. Don't think 'The Name of the Rose' would be available, coz of copyright reasons.

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## Janine

> Lolol Okay. Don't think 'The Name of the Rose' would be available, coz of copyright reasons.


 :Frown:  It is hard to quote books that are still under copyright laws. One has to type everything out. I imagine you are right about that and that is why I have not located it - only to buy online.

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## Dark Muse

I have just recently started reading _The Name of the Rose_ Umberto Eco, and there is one thing which I could not help but to notice. I am currently nearly finnished with Day One, After Nones, and they were descirbing what the illuminations of the monk Adelmo and I found that there seemed to be a strong resemblence between the works of Adelmo, and the art work of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. 

A collection of his works can be seen here:

http://www.abcgallery.com/B/bosch/bosch.html

I found this similiarity to be quite currious and was wondering if it was just a pure conincidence of if perhaps there was something more behind it then that. 

Though the book is set in the 1300's and Bosh painted in the late 1400's to early 1500's, he was a relgious man but I cannot find any real connection between him and the story. His style of painting was quite unique and still is.

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## Janine

> I have just recently started reading _The Name of the Rose_ Umberto Eco, and there is one thing which I could not help but to notice. I am currently nearly finnished with Day One, After Nones, and they were descirbing what the illuminations of the monk Adelmo and I found that there seemed to be a strong resemblence between the works of Adelmo, and the art work of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. 
> 
> A collection of his works can be seen here:
> 
> http://www.abcgallery.com/B/bosch/bosch.html
> 
> I found this similiarity to be quite currious and was wondering if it was just a pure conincidence of if perhaps there was something more behind it then that. 
> 
> Though the book is set in the 1300's and Bosh painted in the late 1400's to early 1500's, he was a relgious man but I cannot find any real connection between him and the story. His style of painting was quite unique and still is.


*Dark Muse,* that is interesting. Thanks for providing the link. I know Bosch's work well and have long been fascinated by it. I would love to further my knowlege of his paintings. I know his painting "Hell" from art college days. He certainly was inovative. Yes, I too wonder, if Eco got some ideas from his work. Of course, there are other artists who do similiar things.

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## PeterL

I found the bits of Latin simple first year stuff. Don't people have to take at least a year of Latin to graduate High School?

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## Dark Muse

Well I know at least in the U.S. they do not any longer, I think they use to at one time, but now it is no longer required.

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## Virgil

Oh I'm going to post something on the marginalia. It is an interesting phenomena from the middle ages. I can't right now. But what makes an interesting comparison with the marginalia is the description of the art on the church door that Adso notices. Compare the church door art (which Eco goes on for about six pages) and the maginalia (which Eco goes on for about four pages). Such extended descriptions carry significance.

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## Virgil

> I found the bits of Latin simple first year stuff. Don't people have to take at least a year of Latin to graduate High School?


 :FRlol:  No, but I wish I did. 

I can look up most of the latin words and phrases if anyone wants me to.

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## Niamh

> I am so sorry that I had to miss this discussion  Stupid exams!


you can still join in baz!



> I have just recently started reading _The Name of the Rose_ Umberto Eco, and there is one thing which I could not help but to notice. I am currently nearly finnished with Day One, After Nones, and they were descirbing what the illuminations of the monk Adelmo and I found that there seemed to be a strong resemblence between the works of Adelmo, and the art work of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. 
> 
> A collection of his works can be seen here:
> 
> http://www.abcgallery.com/B/bosch/bosch.html
> 
> I found this similiarity to be quite currious and was wondering if it was just a pure conincidence of if perhaps there was something more behind it then that. 
> 
> Though the book is set in the 1300's and Bosh painted in the late 1400's to early 1500's, he was a relgious man but I cannot find any real connection between him and the story. His style of painting was quite unique and still is.


When they were discribing the illustrations of Adelmo, i was put in mind of the likes of the book of kells and all the zoomorphic images of christian ireland pre 1000 ad and the viking period. Those types of images were used widely in religous books, esp around the time that the book is set.

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## Dark Muse

> Oh I'm going to post something on the marginalia. It is an interesting phenomena from the middle ages. I can't right now. But what makes an interesting comparison with the marginalia is the description of the art on the church door that Adso notices. Compare the church door art (which Eco goes on for about six pages) and the maginalia (which Eco goes on for about four pages). Such extended descriptions carry significance.


Sounds interesting, it is interesting the detail that is put into the descriptions of the artwork within the story. And there are perhaps some similarities between the art of the door and that of the maginalia, as Adso, mentions the frightening creatures upon the door, and talks of the angles in which the animals are twisted seeming somewhat remisent of the distortations that are discussed in the maginalia.

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## Kafka's Crow

What? You folks are discussing Eco? Where have I been this fortnight?

Well, here it goes. I found a used copy of _The Name of the Rose_ in a second-hand book shop in, of all the places, Pakistan. This was back in 1995. I finished it in two days (keep in mind that I am an extremely slowwwwww reader!) I was fascinated. The book was written in early 80s, the golden age of Post-structuralism and I was reading Madan Sarap on the subject at the same time. These two books were meant to change my destiny. I did research on Eco, his place among the contemporary Italian academics and his specialty, semiotics. This brought me in touch with Barthes, Joyce (Eco is a Joyce specialist as well) and intertextuality. Apparently Eco claimed that "NOTHING" in this book is 'original'. Every single word and idea is borrowed from some other text, mostly medieval but sometimes more recent texts as Sherlock Holmes etc. I was familiar with the Aristotelian works on tragedy and the other forms of drama and everything just kept on falling in place like a jigsaw puzzle. Then there is the historical context mentioned earlier in this thread and larger than life historical figures walk straight out of the text, people like Roger Bacon and others. The text leads on as the reader gets sucked in and becomes a 'Sherlock' himself. Keep furnishing us with the references you find. Everything is borrowed from somewhere else and joined together to make a new (maybe!) story. I didn't know anything about Eco and the book was expensive but the title _The Name of the Rose_ rang a bell (I was hooked, I was on my trail like a 'hound'!) Isn't it Geoffrey Chaucer? _The Romance of the Rose_???? There you go boy, step inside and find more. And then there is the small matter of Romeo's speech about the name and the smell of rose ("What's in the name?"). So Shakespeare also joins us hand in hand with Chaucer! This is not a 'tabloid' popularization of high culture as we find in, for example, _The da Vinci Code._ You have to have some sort of specialist knowledge because nothing is brought to you on a plate. You have to read Eco's book believing in its historical accuracy and reality, nothing is unreal as the boundaries between history and fiction evaporate, as the distance between texts written in 350 BC and 1000 AD and 1902 melt, dissolve and create a new text in 1980! Simply magic! It makes detectives of us all as it is written in the very modern and very popular genre of 'detective story', a murder-mystery. I could go on all night. I was fascinated by the book, so much so that I could not read any other fiction by Eco after this one (I have all of his novels, waiting to be read!!!) I prefer him as an expert of medieval aesthetics and a philosopher of what he calls 'the hyper-real.' He is much greater a philosopher and teacher than a novelist in spite of _The Name of the Rose._

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## PeterL

> Remember this, Eco is a expert in semiotics, the philosophy of how one interprets signs, the cognitive process of interpreting the world. The Middle Ages essentially looked at signs as ends of Gods purpose. The Enlightenment looked at signs as things to logically figure out as ends in themselves. Post-Modern looks at the world and cant connect information to a logical ends.
> 
> That's how I see the philosophic underpinnings of the novel. Of course there's much more.


I believe that Eco's semiotics were very important to The Name. He wrote the novel immediately after he finished his Theory of Semiotics, and, like most detective stories, it involves interpreting signs. His other novels have also mirrored his non-fiction works. Foucault's Pendulum, which is about misinterpreting, was written at the same time when he was writing about literary interpretation.

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## Oomoo

I've been meaning to read Eco for a long time, but the fact he's not included in Bloom's Western Canon made me suspicious. He praises lots of crap, but the omission of such a popular author when second rates like Vonnegut are present is alarming.

Also, how "difficult" it is, compared to, say, Ulysses? (In the amount of extra knowledge needed to understand what's going on - in the sense that one won't consider Faulkner or Woolf "difficult")

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## Dark Muse

Though I have not read Ulyssess, I can say that I have not yet found The Name of the Rose to be a difficult read

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## Janine

I really should be reading the novel, because trying to figure out what is going on exactly on audiotapes is not easy I found out. I was ok with tape one, but when I got to tape 2, side 3, I really began to get confused. I don't know if I will stick with it. Tapes are due back on Tuesday, but I could take the book out after that and considering I am finishing a book up I might be able to continue with the reading at least.

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## Petrarch's Love

Didn't know Eco was being discussed. It doesn't seem as though the discussion's gone too far, so maybe I'll join in here and there. I read _The Name of the Rose_ for the first time this last summer, and found it quite compelling. I happened to be reading a great deal of medieval literature and philosophy around the same time, and the thing I found best about the novel was the way it perfectly recreated the style, feel, and philosophy of the Medieval world. Indeed, there were passages in which I forgot that this was not simply a modern translation of a Medieval account rather than a contemporary novel. Then, of course, some Sherlockian reference would pop up and distract me from the graceful blending of Occam, Aristotle and Medieval Monasticism into a believable fiction. In some ways the book's qualities as a truly beautiful scholarly exercise detracts from it being entirely satisfactory as a novel, but if you take it for what it is, it's great stuff. 

At least from what I recollect in my reading, I tend to agree with Etienne in so far as Eco's engagement with Occham seems entirely in keeping with Occham's philosophy. William does not, as Virgil suggests, "work contrary to the way anyone in the middle ages would have worked," but certainly he represents a more radical type of thought for the 14th century when the book is set. So the basic sides of philosophical debate in the novel are rooted in controversies from the Middle Ages. That said, I also think Virg. has a good point in saying that there other layers of thought woven into this Medieval discussion. Eco very subtly finds ways to, not only make the Medieval world breath as though it were still fresh, but to suggest modern and post-modern issues without making them seem garishly imposed upon the earlier philosophy. As Kafka's Crow also enthusiastically draws out, there are a profusion of literary and philosophical influences interacting in this book, making it an intertextual labyrinth in terms of style alone. 

A few things I wanted to respond to right off:




> I read "the name of the rose" a few years ago, and just in browsing through it again, I remember now, how much parts of the story reminded me of Borges "labyrinths"... especially "the library"... not quite the same, well not the same at all for that matter... but it just seemed to me, to always conjure up images of Borges' work... anyone else find this, or am I crazy? really I could be, so be honest? haha


There is no doubt that Borges was a profound direct influence on Eco and, as you've pointed out, the two writers were interested in very similar themes of libraries and labyrinths etc. Indeed, I believe I've heard that the librarian, Jorge, in _The Name of the Rose_ is named in allusion to Jorge Luis Borges. Scholars consider both Eco and and Borges part of the Magic Realism genre of literature. 





> I have just recently started reading _The Name of the Rose_ Umberto Eco, and there is one thing which I could not help but to notice. I am currently nearly finnished with Day One, After Nones, and they were descirbing what the illuminations of the monk Adelmo and I found that there seemed to be a strong resemblence between the works of Adelmo, and the art work of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch... Though the book is set in the 1300's and Bosh painted in the late 1400's to early 1500's, he was a relgious man but I cannot find any real connection between him and the story. His style of painting was quite unique and still is.



Bosch does have incredibly memorable images, but I would imagine that Eco had actual 14th century illuminations in mind in that passage. There are some pretty far out images in Manuscript illuminations from that period and before, as Niamh suggests. The images from illuminations must have had an influence on Bosch, so there's a connection in that sense, but there's no reason Eco would have to be thinking of anything beyond illuminations of the period.

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## Virgil

Glad you joined the conversation Petrarch. I bet you can offer some good insights.



> At least from what I recollect in my reading, I tend to agree with Etienne in so far as Eco's engagement with Occham seems entirely in keeping with Occham's philosophy.


I vaguely understand Occam's philosophy but I don't understand how it fits in the novel. Any help there would be appreciated.




> William does not, as Virgil suggests, "work contrary to the way anyone in the middle ages would have worked," but certainly he represents a more radical type of thought for the 14th century when the book is set. So the basic sides of philosophical debate in the novel are rooted in controversies from the Middle Ages.


But how does the whole Sherlock Holmes thing fit in? The character is William of Baskerville, which is a bit of an absurdity if one restricts oneself to only medival thought.




> That said, I also think Virg. has a good point in saying that there other layers of thought woven into this Medieval discussion. Eco very subtly finds ways to, not only make the Medieval world breath as though it were still fresh, but to suggest modern and post-modern issues without making them seem garishly imposed upon the earlier philosophy.


If this novel only relates to us as a historical novel, then I think it will come up short. Who cares about what a fiction writer of 1983 thinks about medival ideas. If they are so important to him he can write an essay or a non-fiction book. Ultimately this novel has to relate to modern or post modern ideas or else it's a limited work.




> There is no doubt that Borges was a profound direct influence on Eco and, as you've pointed out, the two writers were interested in very similar themes of libraries and labyrinths etc. Indeed, I believe I've heard that the librarian, Jorge, in _The Name of the Rose_ is named in allusion to Jorge Luis Borges. Scholars consider both Eco and and Borges part of the Magic Realism genre of literature.


Yes Jorge of Burgos alludes to Jorge Luis Borges. Interesting Eco sets him as the villain.

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## Etienne

> I vaguely understand Occam's philosophy but I don't understand how it fits in the novel. Any help there would be appreciated.


Well since no one actually seems interested in discussing the philosophy of Ockham, I'll post a very brief outline.

Ockham was a strong supporter of nominalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism) of a kind sometimes called conceptualism, as opposed to Duns Scot's realism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism). Ockham's main contribution to philosophy is a matter of method, the most known example is Ockham's razor (do not multiply entities beyond necessity), and overall a method that prefigures the analytical movement in contemporary philosophy by it's attempt to be throughly logical and empirical.

We can say that he was a epistemic realist (in the sense where the real is directly accessible) and a ontological antirealist.

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## Dark Muse

> Bosch does have incredibly memorable images, but I would imagine that Eco had actual 14th century illuminations in mind in that passage. There are some pretty far out images in Manuscript illuminations from that period and before, as Niamh suggests. The images from illuminations must have had an influence on Bosch, so there's a connection in that sense, but there's no reason Eco would have to be thinking of anything beyond illuminations of the period.


Yes that would make sense of Bosch was influenced by the illuminations, and it would stand to reason, that Eco would stick with 14century art within the story. 

I was just particuarly struck by the descritipons, of human bodies having fish heads, and such images as that, that were very Basch in my mind.

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## Petrarch's Love

> Glad you joined the conversation Petrarch. I bet you can offer some good insights.


Thanks, Virg. I'll try. Forgot to mention last night that my copy of the book is in California, so I'm going to track one down at the library this afternoon so that I'm better able to look at the specifics with you all. 




> Well since no one actually seems interested in discussing the philosophy of Ockham, I'll post a very brief outline.


Thanks, Ettiene. I was not up to tackling a summation of Nominalism last night, so this looks like a good start for the curious. I'll add the Wikipedia article on Ockham himself to the mix (though I've only had a chance to peruse it briefly, so let me know if you purposely avoided that entry because of possible Wikipdia errors or something): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Ockham 



> I vaguely understand Occam's philosophy but I don't understand how it fits in the novel. Any help there would be appreciated.


To begin with, I thought he clearly marked a lot of references to Occam by having the character William directly refer to ideas that he got from his friend Occam, but I'll have to look again when I get a copy of the book to see what other things look razor sharp to me (sorry, could not resist bad Occam joke :Tongue:  ) and to contemplate how exactly the philosophy is being integrated into the fiction. We could also start with the fact that Ockham's name was William.  :Biggrin:  





> But how does the whole Sherlock Holmes thing fit in? The character is William of Baskerville, which is a bit of an absurdity if one restricts oneself to only medival thought.


Yes, the Sherlock Holmes references are clearly there, and I don't think I was suggesting at all the that the novel is purely restricted to Medieval philosophy, just that the Medieval philosophy is more complex than was being assumed. I thought both you and Kafka's Crow were doing a great job of drawing out more post modern philosophical aspects and the intense engagement with intertextuality that are both such a huge part of Eco's project. I've always assumed that Conan Doyle had Ockham's razor in mind when he was creating the Holmes character, so I do find that there are times when William's rational approach seems to slide effortlessly between the influence of the Medieval thinker and the 19th century detective character (there are other places where the Holmsian references are more sharply defined and not particularly tied to Ockham of course). 





> If this novel only relates to us as a historical novel, then I think it will come up short. Who cares about what a fiction writer of 1983 thinks about medival ideas. If they are so important to him he can write an essay or a non-fiction book. Ultimately this novel has to relate to modern or post modern ideas or else it's a limited work.


Yes, again, I was agreeing with you that he's using a Medieval base to play with more modern issues. I was also admiring how well he creates that Medieval world and how seamlessly he joins it with a post modernist sense. Ultimately he is using such a variety of philosophical and stylistic sources, that they tend to blend and merge (just as I was suggesting with the Ockham/Holmes similarities above). Part of what comes across to me in the book is that there are some profound echoes and similarities between the concerns of Medieval thinking and concerns of our own thinking. He creates an exceedingly complex world within the book that is at once a Medieval world, a post modern world commenting on that Medieval world, and a world somewhere fantastically suspended outside of any historical context at all--a world that never existed despite its sometimes deeply convincing historical presence. I think it's that third dimension--the dimension of the fantastic or fantasy world in which texts and philosophies from a variety of eras are merged and jumbled--that frees the book most to be a compelling read. 




> Yes Jorge of Burgos alludes to Jorge Luis Borges. Interesting Eco sets him as the villain.


Thanks for confirming that Virg. I had fogotten that he was Jorge of Burgos. That wily, witty Eco.  :FRlol:  



> I was just particuarly struck by the descritipons, of human bodies having fish heads, and such images as that, that were very Basch in my mind.


Yes, and Bosch was a very logical place to go for that. Certainly you've got the spirit of the descriptions by envisioning Bosch. When I have a bit more time I'll track down some illumination images like the ones being described in that passage. Some of them are pretty amazing.

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## Niamh

here are some images from the book of kells:

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## Petrarch's Love

Wonderful, Niamh. Here are some more illuminations I dug up online. All are from roughly around the time _The Name of the Rose_ is supposed to be set or within the century before.

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## Janine

*Niamh,* thanks for posting the pictures from the Book of Kells. I have an art book of the Book of Kells; I should look at it more closely today. Interesting dual images and illuminations.

*Petrarch,* those images are amazing and to think they are from that time period. Thanks for posting them.
I have a question for you. I read Arthur Connon-Doyle's "The White Company" a few years ago; as you must know it,
"A historical novel of Knights and Chivalry set during the Hundred Years War." I wondered how this might tie in with Eco's book? The second paragraph in the story, mentions an abbey and monks. 
At the time I read the book, I was amazed to discover that Doyle had written this type of literature, and was quite well-known for it. I would assume this plays into this creative mixture in Eco's book, going back to those sources that inspired him.

I found this in Wikepedia and thought it tied in with what everyone was saying about the novel coming from various sources. Also I had wondered about the name and here it explains something about it. If you go to the Wikepedia entry for the novel title you will find more conjection on the meanings behind the title, and some other interesting information on the novel. 
This may be a *SPOILER* so be warned if you have not finished reading the novel....




> 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]

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## Dark Muse

Nice job posting those images both of you. I can see how they could represent some of the distorations and unatuaralness that were discussed in the book, also I could see how Basch may have been inpsiered by such things.

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## Virgil

I was going to write a post comparing the church door imagery with the marginalia imagery from Adelmo's illuminations. These are going to be long posts, so I'm going to split it up. Tonight I'll give you my thoughts on the church door reliefs and tomorrow I'll post on the marginalia. Like I've said in an earlier post, the two come as extended descriptions early on, and are surely intended as a comparison. The differences between the two i think suggests the foremost theme of the novel.

Now I can't reproduce the entire six or seven pages with my commentary. That woould be too much. What i'll do is highlight prominant points and give what I think is Eco's point.

The church door description occurs on the first day Sext, page 39 in my edition. Framing the door are two columns, "straight and unadorned". The doorway is a "single great arch" which seems to lead to multiple arches. The images, "the literature of the layman" decorate the doors and walls which "plunges" Adso into a vision. The central image is that of God and here is Eco's description:




> I saw a throne set in the sky and a figure seated on the throne. The face of the Seated One was stern and impassive, the eyes wide and glaring over a terrestrial humankind that had reached the end of the story; majestic hair and beard fowed around the face and over the chest like the waters of a river, in streams all equal, symmetrically divided in two. The crown on his head was rich with enamels and jewels, the purple imperial tunic was arranged in broad folds over the knees, woven with embroideries and laces of gold and silver thread.


In God's left hand is a sealed book and the right lifted in a motion suggesting both a "blessing" and "admonition." Around God are four "awful" creatures, an eagle, a lion, a bull, and a kindly man. And then there are the images around God:




> Around the throne, beside the four creatures and under the feet of the Seated One, as if seen through the transported waters of the crystal sea, as if to fill the whole space of the vision, arranged according to the triangular frame of the tympanum, rising from a base of seven plus seven, then to three plus three and then to two plus two, at either side of the great throne, on twenty-four little thrones, there were twenty-four ancients, wearing white garments and crowned in gold.


And then we get this unbelievable sentence, a sentence perhaps reminiscent of those by William Faulkner:




> And beneath the feet of the ancients, and arched over them and over the throne and over the tetramorphic group, arranged in symmetrical bands, barely distinguishable one from another because the artist's skill had made them all so mutually proportionate, united in their variety and varied intheir unity, unique in their diversity and diverse in their apt assembly, in wonderous congruency of the parts with the delightful sweetness of hues, miracle of consonance and concord of voices among themselves dissimilar, a company arrayed like the strings of the zither, consentient and conspiring continued cognition through deep and interior force suited to perform univocally in same alternating play of the equivocal, decoration and collage of creatures beyond reduction to vicissitudes reduced, work of amorous connecting sustained by a law at once heavenly and worldly (bond and stable nexus of peace, love, virtue, regimen, power, order, origin, life, light, splendor, species, and figure), numerous and resplendent equality through the shining of the form over the proportionate parts of the materialthere, all the flowers and leaves and vines and bushes and corymbs were entwined, of all the grasses that adores the gardens of earth and heaven, violet, cystus, thyme, lily, privet, narcissus, taro, acanthus, mallow, myrrh, and Mecca balsam.


Now that is one of the great sentences of literature! I should try to find the original Italian and read that.

And after this we get four figures along inner columns, that of Peter and Paul and Jeremiah and Isaiah. And finally after this, and I dont have the energy to type highlights out here, is a hell-esk description, a voluptuous woman being suffering the tortue of hell, and Satans bestiary, and the whole population of the nether world gathered together.

So what does this all mean? Im going to put forth that these are all signs of orthodoxy, the established world view of the time. It sets a conservative frame. The stern God on a throne, projects power, the crown and purple tunic symbols of that power. God both blesses and admonishes. The four creatures, enforce that power. The ancients are arranged in a triangle, a symbol of power, and arranged in symbolic numerology, which projects harmony and unity. And the four prophets are the pillars of the world view that the age exists in. What Eco has done here is projected the established world view in an arrangement of images and signs.

Now stay tune for the contrasting imagery of the marginalia.

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## Dark Muse

I will post some hightlights from the more Helish scene that was portrayed upon the door. As I found them quite intresting, the way in which the more heanvely scene was contrasted so. 




> I saw a vouluptuous woman, naked and fleshless, gnawed by foul toads, sucked by serpants, coupled with a fat-bellied satyr whose gryphon legs were covered with wirty hairs, howling its own damnation from an obscene throat.


I found this interesting becasue of the mention of gryphons in the marginilia as well




> I saw a miser, stiff in the stiffness of deah on his sumptuously columned bed, now helpless prey of a cohort of demons, one of whom tore from the dying man's mouth his soul in the form of an infannt, and I saw a proud man with a devil clinging to his shoulders and thrusting his claws into the mans eyes, while two gluttons tore each other apart in a repulsive hand-to-hand struggle


This next part I just found intresting the varrious kinds of animals which were seen as being linked to hell and Satan:




> goat head and lion fur, panter's jaws, all prisoners in a forest of flames whose searing breath I could almost feel. And around them, mingled with them, above thier headsand below their feet, more faces and more limbs: a manand a woman clutching each other by the hair, two aspssucking the eyes of one of the damned, a grinning man whose hooked hands parted the maw of a hydra





> Sirens, hippocentaurs, gorgons, harpeis, incubi, dragonpods, mintours, lynxes, pards, chimeras, cynohales who darted fire from thier nostrails, crocodiles, polycaudate, hairy serpents, salamanders, horned vipers, tortosies, snakes, two-headed creatures whose backs were armed with teeth, hyenas, otters, crows, hydrophora with sawtooth horns, frogs, gryphons, monkeys, dog-heads, leucrota, manticores, vultures, paranders, weasels, dragons, hoopoes, owls, basilisks, hypnales, presters, spectafici, scoripions, saurians, whales, scitales, amphisbenae, iaculis, dipsases, green lizards, pilot fish, octopi, morays, and sea turtles


Though many of these animals are from mythology or have earned othersise bad reputations often for no good reason, a couple struck me as odd, in particular the mention, of the otters, and the sea turtles.

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## Virgil

Thanks DM. I got tired of typing.  :Smile:

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## Dark Muse

Hehe no problem, it was quite a lengthy desciption

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## Dark Muse

I found these images of some Tympanson carvings, simillar to that discussed in the book

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## Virgil

Great find DM.  :Thumbs Up:  Those look just like what's being described.  :Smile:

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## Janine

*Virgil* and *DM* thanks for posting all of that and the quotes. Wow, those are totally intriguing. I must admit this book is a fascination to me, as to the art and architectural aspects. Thanks for posting those carvings *DM*. They are marvelous/
I was thinking the same think in reading that list of demonic creatures. I wondered how the tortoise fit in, also. Have you ever seen moray els? They are truly demonic looking, not to mention the fact that they can be quite vicious. I didn't really know that frogs were a symbol of evil either.

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## Dark Muse

Yes I wondered about the turotise as well. The frogs, I found currious, but they are considered one or the plagues in the Bibile, and they are probably considered evil becasue of thier ambious nature. As well people use to think that you could get worts from toads, and worts were often associated with witches. 

Hehe yes I have seen morays, I always thought they were pretty cool, but they do resemble seprents and cane be agressive.

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## Niamh

> Around God are four "awful" creatures, an eagle, a lion, a bull, and a kindly man.


These images are the representations of Mattew, Mark, Luke, and John.



> I found these images of some Tympanson carvings, simillar to that discussed in the book


I kow the second of those is from Chartre Cathedral. The west facade of that cathedral is amazing! below the tymphanum is what is dubbed "The kings and Queens", and it is some of the early gothics greatest carvings because they are so graceful and lifelike. 
The last of the three images is from the great tymphanum of Autun Cathedral. It goes by two names, The Weighing of the Souls and The Last Judgement. If you look in one corner you should see the image of judas with a noose around his neck. It was carved by a man called gisellbertus, and this is know because he carved his name into the sculpture.  :Nod:  I had to study these two cathedrals in school...
From reading the book its easy to assume that the monastry is a good few hundred years old, and from the grotesque discriptions of the tymphanum etc it would be right to believe that the church was constructed in the Romanesque period. The First one though seems to be quite similar in the discription....
 :Smile:

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## Dark Muse

Thank you for the background info on the art work, quite interesting, yes I guess from the way in which the monostary was described it sounded to be of Romanesque desgin.

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## PeterL

> But how does the whole Sherlock Holmes thing fit in? The character is William of Baskerville, which is a bit of an absurdity if one restricts oneself to only medival thought.


Eco is an enthusiast of detective novels. He was the co-author of a collection of essays about such stories. The theme of the novel is signs and logical connections among signs. Sherlock Holmes is probably the world's best known detective, and William of Baskerville is at the abbey to solve a murder, actually a series of murders, which he will eventually do. Occam was mentioned, because of his famous contribution to logic and philosophy. Occam's razor is significant to the novel, because some would try to add unnecessary complications to the solution of the murders. everything in the Name is a sign of something.As soon as I learned William's name, I knew that he was to be a detective. 

Signs, the relationships among signs, and how signs relate to other things or people

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## Virgil

> Eco is an enthusiast of detective novels. He was the co-author of a collection of essays about such stories. The theme of the novel is signs and logical connections among signs. Sherlock Holmes is probably the world's best known detective, and William of Baskerville is at the abbey to solve a murder, actually a series of murders, which he will eventually do. Occam was mentioned, because of his famous contribution to logic and philosophy. Occam's razor is significant to the novel, because some would try to add unnecessary complications to the solution of the murders. everything in the Name is a sign of something.As soon as I learned William's name, I knew that he was to be a detective. 
> 
> Signs, the relationships among signs, and how signs relate to other things or people


Yes, I know Peter. It was a rhetorical question to Petrarch in that her reading seemed to be strictly as a historical novel of the middle ages. My point was that it's more than that. Thanks on the Occam's razor explanation. That's the first time someone has linked it with the novel's themes.

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## Janine

I asked this before - does the fact that Arthur Connon-Doyle also wrote the book "The White Company" tie into this novel at all? It is based on Medieval England during the 100 Years War. If you read the beginning paragraphs of that novel, you will note that a monk had a illicit affair with a woman and is expelled, exiled from the monastery. I read the novel a few years ago, but I found it curious now, that Eco is writing this novel set in a monastary and one woman has been prominently involved in the plot. I wondered about the combination of Holmes stories and this one, and if the two contributed to an influence for Eco. This might be a lame question, but I finished listening to the audiotapes and have an idea of the story now and the ideas behind it. I definitely need now to read the novel, but the audiotapes were a good introduction and aid to a better understanding of what I will read in greater depth. I do find the book quite fascinating in the aspect of influences and riddles, mysteries, symbols, images, art, etc.

*Niamh,* thanks for adding the historical information on the photos that *Dark Muse* has posted. They are amazing. I wrote a paper in college on Romanesque architecture - it is quite fascinating and beautiful. Are these carvings of the Romanesque period?

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## Niamh

The last one definitely is. I'm not sure about the first one, i think its romanesque from the curve at the top of the tymphanum, but the second one is Gothic. The west facade of Chartres Cathedral is amazing at night time. All lit up. I really like the Tymphanum at Autun Cathedral. The images are really grotesques, and scary. I'm sure any person walking up to the west facade of that cathedral would be terrified at the sight of it. In that sense you can almost imaging the terror Adso was feeling upon looking at the tymphanum of the church in the book.

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## Dark Muse

Yes I would say that the first one is most likely Romanesque, becasue the carving is not quite as intricate, and it has more of a rounded arch, than a pointed arch

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## Niamh

yeah thats what i was thinking....

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## Virgil

> I asked this before - does the fact that Arthur Connon-Doyle also wrote the book "The White Company" tie into this novel at all? It is based on Medieval England during the 100 Years War. If you read the beginning paragraphs of that novel, you will note that a monk had a illicit affair with a woman and is expelled, exiled from the monastery. I read the novel a few years ago, but I found it curious now, that Eco is writing this novel set in a monastary and one woman has been prominently involved in the plot. I wondered about the combination of Holmes stories and this one, and if the two contributed to an influence for Eco.


Janine, I don't think anyone has the answer to that. I don't think many of us have read _The White Company_. But it is an interesting relationship you point out, and given that Conan Doyle is important to the theme of the novel, it is quite possible. 




> This might be a lame question, but I finished listening to the audiotapes and have an idea of the story now and the ideas behind it. I definitely need now to read the novel, but the audiotapes were a good introduction and aid to a better understanding of what I will read in greater depth. I do find the book quite fascinating in the aspect of influences and riddles, mysteries, symbols, images, art, etc.


I think it's a great book.  :Smile:

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## Janine

> Janine, I don't think anyone has the answer to that. I don't think many of us have read _The White Company_. But it is an interesting relationship you point out, and given that Conan Doyle is important to the theme of the novel, it is quite possible.


Thanks *Virgil,* for addressing my question. It is funny how I came about reading "The White Company"...I was simply browsing through my collected works of Doyle one day and started to read chapter one...curiosity grabbed me; before I knew it I was totally captivated. I marveled at the fact, I had not previously known that Doyle wrote about Medieval times. The book is not without it's humor, also. I loved the way it was written and I am surprised to find out not many people have read it or even know of it. Surely Eco must have.




> I think it's a great book.


No doubt it is. I believe so, if you say so. I need to get into the real meat of the actual text and not just listen to the lines being narrated; although, I admit, this audiobook was very well done. It is an abridged version unfortunately. Maybe ideal would be to read the book, at my own pace; then relisten to the tapes. It would be good to see the film version, as well.

*DM* and* Nimah,* I think those are more Romanesque being rounded as *DM* pointed out, Gothic would be pointed at the top.

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## Niamh

Yes, i'd kind of mentioned that in my post....



> The last one definitely is. I'm not sure about the first one, _i think its romanesque from the curve at the top of the tymphanum_, but the second one is Gothic. The west facade of Chartres Cathedral is amazing at night time. All lit up. I really like the Tymphanum at Autun Cathedral. The images are really grotesques, and scary. I'm sure any person walking up to the west facade of that cathedral would be terrified at the sight of it. In that sense you can almost imaging the terror Adso was feeling upon looking at the tymphanum of the church in the book.

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## Virgil

> Thanks *Virgil,* for addressing my question. It is funny how I came about reading "The White Company"...I was simply browsing through my collected works of Doyle one day and started to read chapter one...curiosity grabbed me; before I knew it I was totally captivated. I marveled at the fact, I had not previously known that Doyle wrote about Medieval times. The book is not without it's humor, also. I loved the way it was written and I am surprised to find out not many people have read it or even know of it. Surely Eco must have.


The only Dolye I've ever read is Sherlock Holmes related. But he has a great reputation as a writer of many things. Unfortunately he's only remembered today for Sherlock.




> No doubt it is. I believe so, if you say so. I need to get into the real meat of the actual text and not just listen to the lines being narrated; although, I admit, this audiobook was very well done. It is an abridged version unfortunately. Maybe ideal would be to read the book, at my own pace; then relisten to the tapes. It would be good to see the film version, as well.


I love audio tapes. I've written about that elsewhere. They make reading along a pleasure. I think most are well done.

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## Petrarch's Love

> *Niamh,* thanks for posting the pictures from the Book of Kells. I have an art book of the Book of Kells; I should look at it more closely today. Interesting dual images and illuminations.
> 
> *Petrarch,* those images are amazing and to think they are from that time period. Thanks for posting them.
> I have a question for you. I read Arthur Connon-Doyle's "The White Company" a few years ago; as you must know it,
> "A historical novel of Knights and Chivalry set during the Hundred Years War." I wondered how this might tie in with Eco's book? The second paragraph in the story, mentions an abbey and monks. 
> At the time I read the book, I was amazed to discover that Doyle had written this type of literature, and was quite well-known for it. I would assume this plays into this creative mixture in Eco's book, going back to those sources that inspired him.



Hi Janine--Conan Doyle did indeed write a lot of historical fiction. He aspired to be something like the next Walter Scott, and was always deeply disappointed that no one was much interested in his historical fiction. They just wanted to read Holmes stories, which both puzzled and infuriated him. I haven't read any of Conan Doyle's historical fiction since back in High School and I can't remember the _White Company_ well enough to speak to the possible influences on Eco. It's an interesting idea though that Eco may have been thinking of other Conan Doyle works. Certainly Eco's background as a Medieval scholar would have to be the primary impetus for the setting of _The Name of the Rose_, but it would be intriguing to see if there are some ways that Conan Doyle's work influenced Eco's portrayal of the period.

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## Janine

> Hi Janine--Conan Doyle did indeed write a lot of historical fiction. He aspired to be something like the next Walter Scott, and was always deeply disappointed that no one was much interested in his historical fiction. They just wanted to read Holmes stories, which both puzzled and infuriated him. I haven't read any of Conan Doyle's historical fiction since back in High School and I can't remember the _White Company_ well enough to speak to the possible influences on Eco. It's an interesting idea though that Eco may have been thinking of other Conan Doyle works. Certainly Eco's background as a Medieval scholar would have to be the primary impetus for the setting of _The Name of the Rose_, but it would be intriguing to see if there are some ways that Conan Doyle's work influenced Eco's portrayal of the period.


*Petrarch,* thanks for taking the time to talk about this idea and possibility. I thought you, of all people, might have a better insight into the connection and I am glad you do know of Doyle's other works, besides Sherlock Holmes tales. It is interesting you should mention Scott, because as I was reading "The White Company" I thought there was a similiarity to Sir Walter Scott's novels. I was so amazed to find that Conon Doyle had written something, other than mystery stories involving the notorious Sherlock Holmes. I don't know of anyone else who has read the book or any other of his historical fiction. I read online that these had fallen out of popularity and yet, I thought TWC was quite witty and well written. I will have to see what else I can find out about the novel in connection to Eco's thinking and creativity.

*Virgil,* yes, these audiobooks can be quite helpful indeed. Unfortunately, I could not listen and read along with this one, since it was abridged, but still I felt it was a good introduction to the story and I enjoyed certain parts very much. The narrator did all the parts as though it was a play; therefore it was quite captivating. I just wish I had had time to listen to it twice but I had to return it tonight to my library. I can always get it out and listen to it again after reading the actual book, which I took from the library tonight. I am intrigued enough to give the book a second chance.





> Yes, i'd kind of mentioned that in my post....
> 
> Quote:
> The last one definitely is. I'm not sure about the first one, i think its romanesque from the curve at the top of the tymphanum, but the second one is Gothic. The west facade of Chartres Cathedral is amazing at night time. All lit up. I really like the Tymphanum at Autun Cathedral. The images are really grotesques, and scary. I'm sure any person walking up to the west facade of that cathedral would be terrified at the sight of it. In that sense you can almost imaging the terror Adso was feeling upon looking at the tymphanum of the church in the book.


*Niamh,* It is true that you had mentioned both - Romanesque and the Gothic. I was mostly reading part of your statement, that was quoted by someone else, think *DM,* so I guess I missed this full description and the one encompassing the Gothic arches. Sorry about that. I think it must have been terrifying, as you describe, especially at night.

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## Virgil

Ok, I posted on the description of the church door. Now in contrast is the extended description of the marginalia art that Adelmo paints in the folios. The marginalia description also occurs on the first day in the chapter After Nones. William and Adso meet the scholars and copyists in the scriptorium. Let me copy out the entire important section:




> This was a psalter in whose margins was delineated a world reversed with respect to the one to which our senses have accustomed us. As if at the border of a discourse that is by definition the discourse of truth, there proceeded, closely linked to it, through wondrous allusions in aenigmate, a discourse of falsehood on a topsy-turvy universe, in which dogs flee before the hare, and deer hunt the lion. Little bird-feet heads,, animals with human hands on their back, hirsute pates from which feet sprout, zebra-striped dragons, quadrupeds with serpentine necks twisted in a thousand inextricable knots, monkeys with stags horns, sirens in the form of fowl with membranous wins, armless men with other human bodies emerging from their backs like humps, and figures with tooth-filled mouths on the belly, humans with horses heads, and horses with human legs, fish with birds wings and birds with fishtails, monsters with single bodies and double heads or single heads and double bodies, cows with cocks tails and butterfly wings, women with heads scaly as a fishs back, two-headed chimeras interlaced with dragonflies with lizard snouts, centaurs, dragons, elephants, manticores stretched out on tree branches, gryphons whose tails turned into an archer in battle array, diabolical creatures with endless necks, sequences of anthropomorphic animals and zoomorphic dwarfs joined, sometimes on the same page, with scenes of rustic life in which you saw, depicted with such impressive vivacity that the figures seemed alive, all the life of the fields, plowmen, fruit gatherers, harvesters, spinning-women, sowers alongside foxes, and martens armed with crossbows who were scaling the walls of a towered city defended by monkeys. Here an initial letter, bent into an L, in the lower part generated a dragon; there a great V, which began the word verba, produced as a natural shoot from its trunk a serpent with a thousand coils, which in turn begot other serpents as leaves and clusters.


And then in another book, the following imagery is described:




> The entire margins of the book were invaded by minuscule forms that generated one another, as if by natural expansion, from the terminal scrolls of the splendidly drawn letters: sea sirens, stags in flight, chimeras, armless human torsos that emerged like slugs from the very body of the verses. At one point, as if to continue the triple Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus repeated on three different lines, you saw three ferocious figures with human heads, two of which were bent, one downward and one upward, to join in a kiss you would not have hesitated to call immodest if you were not persuaded that a profound, even if not evident, spiritual meaning must surely have justified that illustration at that point.


What is different I think about these images is that they do not fit orthodox structure of the world view. One of the themes of the novel, perhaps the central theme, is that congruent to the orthodox world view is a subversive world view that wants to over turn orthodoxy. These images represent a world reverse, a topsy-turvy universe stated in the first two sentences I quoted. While the church door represents a conservative outlook, the marginalia suggests a subversive outlook. So much of the novel deals with the nature of heresy and what is heretical. Heresy by its nature is a subversive belief, an inversion of the natural perspective, an undermining of the signs that maintain a common understanding of how the world works.

What is important following the absorption of these images is Adsos reaction:



> As I followed those pages I was torn between silent admiration and laughter, because the illustrations naturally inspired merriment, though they were commenting on holy pages.


And then Adso recalls a verse in his vernacular German, which translates to the following:



> Be silent about all wonders;
> That earth has risen above heaven
> This you should consider a wonder.


The earth above heaven is the inversion of established mindset. And the reaction of laughter, not only Adso but William and Malachi and the other monks, stands in stark contrast to the stern reaction of God on the throne admonishing. Those that have read the novel know the importance of laughter in the novel. Laughter is the subversive reaction that will take the world of the middle ages into the world of the Renaissance. At least thats my understanding of this novel.

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## Dark Muse

> What is different I think about these images is that they do not fit orthodox structure of the world view. One of the themes of the novel, perhaps the central theme, is that congruent to the orthodox world view is a subversive world view that wants to over turn orthodoxy. These images represent a world reverse, a topsy-turvy universe stated in the first two sentences I quoted. While the church door represents a conservative outlook, the marginalia suggests a subversive outlook. So much of the novel deals with the nature of heresy and what is heretical. Heresy by its nature is a subversive belief, an inversion of the natural perspective, an undermining of the signs that maintain a common understanding of how the world works.


Very well said, perhaps it is also symbolic of the fact that it seems there are things within the monostatry that may not be quite as orthodox, as they may appear upon the outside without further exmination.

Also sense you mentioned hersey which does play a role, I think William had made some very good statements on the subject, perhpas when I get the oppertunity I shall quote some of the ones that particulary struck me.

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## Virgil

> Very well said, perhaps it is also symbolic of the fact that it seems there are things within the monostatry that may not be quite as orthodox, as they may appear upon the outside without further exmination.
> 
> Also sense you mentioned hersey which does play a role, I think William had made some very good statements on the subject, perhpas when I get the oppertunity I shall quote some of the ones that particulary struck me.


Thanks DM. Please do.

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## Dark Muse

Here are some passages upon the subject or relating to the subject of heresy that I found interesting within the book, up to the point I have read thus far. 




> And this is the evil that heresy inflicts on the Christian people, obfuscating idea and inciting all to become inquisitors for their personal benefits.





> For what I saw at the abbey then caused me to think that often inquisitors create heretics. And not only in the sense that they imagine heretics where these do not exist, but also the inquisitors repress the heretical putrefaction so vehemently that many are driven to share in it, in their hatred for the judges.


These first two are acutally by Adso. 

The next are from a discussion between Ubertino and William though I did not copy the whole discussion, I quoted the highlights and what I thought the most interesting and important parts. 

Ubertino:




> They gathered at night in a cellar, they took a newborn boy, they threw him from one to the other until he died, of blows or other causes. And he who caught hum alive for the last time, and held him ad he died became the leader of the sect. And the child's body was torn to pieces and mixed with flour.



William:




> These things were said, many centuries ago, by the Armenian bishops about the sect of Paulicians. And about the Bogomils


Ubertino:




> They lighted candles on Easter night and took maidens into the cellar. Than they extinguished the candles and threw themselves on the maidens, even if they were bound to them by ties of blood. And if from this conjunction a baby was born, the infernal rite was resumed, all around a little jar of wine, which they called a keg, and they became drunk and would cut the baby to pieces and pour its blood into a goblet, and they threw babies on the fires still alive, and they mixed the babies ashes and his blood and drank.


William:




> But Michael Psellus wrote this in his book on the workings of devils three hundred years ago!





> Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond is established between you and him.


One thing I found interesting is that it was mentioned that Ubertino himself was accused of hersey and yet it seems he is unable to see how perhaps he might be doing the same thing to his enimies in his accusations, that others are trying to do to him.

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## Janine

Those were horrific images (some), but so very interesting *Dark Muse*. Thanks so much for taking the time to look all of that up and quoting it. I assume you had to retype it all. Good job.

*Virgil* I read your post also, and found it an interesting two parts of the book. I recall when listening to my tapes I stopped and listened intently to those two sections - the images were so vivid and I love all the art in the novel. Likewise, if you had to type all of that, thanks so much for taking the effort. This is quite interesting and I am getting much out of this discussion on the novel, even though mostly I am just reading along with the posts.

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## Dark Muse

> Those were horrific images (some), but so very interesting *Dark Muse*. Thanks so much for taking the time to look all of that up and quoting it. I assume you had to retype it all. Good job.


Hehe yes I did retype, so I am glad you enjoyed. Indeed some of the images were quite horrific but also much intriguing.

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## Virgil

> Very well said, perhaps it is also symbolic of the fact that it seems there are things within the monostatry that may not be quite as orthodox, as they may appear upon the outside without further exmination.


Hehe. Now that I went back to re-read that paragraph, it is very well written if I say so myself. Sometimes the words come out just right. Usually it takes a bit of rewriting (which I don't do for lit net posts) for me to rise to that level of writing, but this time the sentences came out well balanced and with precision and rhythm.  :Wink:

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## Janine

*Virgil,*  :Thumbs Up:   :Biggrin:  on your long post and great observations! That was very helpful. Thanks. :Smile:

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## Virgil

> *Virgil,*   on your long post and great observations! That was very helpful. Thanks.


Janine, these are just my theories. I can't even begin to consider myself an expert on this novel. If someone has better ideas or thinks otherwise, I'm more than open to revising my thoughts.

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## Janine

> Janine, these are just my theories. I can't even begin to consider myself an expert on this novel. If someone has better ideas or thinks otherwise, I'm more than open to revising my thoughts.


 :Wink:  I know that and that is ok, I like you theories. They help me understand the book much better. I am hoping to actually read the book now. I can't promise anything. It is a library book and so it is hard having a time limit to read it. I would really like to mull over it for months; I read like that sometimes, you know. I will have two weeks, and I can renew it another two weeks and then have a grace period, so that is a long time, I suppose. I have other books to read too, so we will see. I have only part of the last chapter left in "Kangaroo"; will be done with that novel today. I have enjoyed it. :Wink:   :Thumbs Up:  Then we have Chekhov and Lawrence short stories and "Dubliners"; I can deal with those easily though. Oh yeah, and still need to listen to second half of "Women in Love"....do I sound bogged down? Well, it should all work out now. I have the desire to do all these mentioned. Thanks for recommending this novel TNOTR. I find it fascinating :Nod:

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## Jason Renzi

god i loved this book...
i'll have to read through all your posts...i just wanted to express how much i love and respect mr. eco and this book...

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## Niamh

OOOHHHHH!!!! :Flare:  
I really hope William out smarts that bernard whats his face guy!!!

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## Virgil

Here is a very interesting exchange between William and Jorge. It's on the second day, the Terce chapter. They are back in the library and the two have a debate over laughter and comedy.




> At first I could not understand why William had embarked on this learned discussion, and with a man who seemed to dislike such subjects, but Jorges reply told me how subtle my master had been.
> 
> That day we were not discussing comedies, but only the licitness of laughter, Jorge said grimly. I remembered very well that when Venantius had referred to that discussion, only the day before, Jorge had claimed not to remember it.
> 
> Ah, William said casually, I thought you had spoken of poets lies and shrewd riddles. ...
> 
> We talked about laughter, Jorge said sharply. The comedies were written by the pagans to move spectators to laughter, and they acted wrongly. Our Lord Jesus never told comedies or fables, but only clear parables which allegorically instruct us on how to win paradise, and so be it.
> 
> I wonder, William said, why you are so opposed to the idea that Jesus may have laughed. I believe laughter is a good medicine, like baths, to treat humors and the other afflictions of the body, melancholy in particular.
> ...


I think the key line is William's response mid way: "But sometimes it is right to doubt." The connection between laughter as a response to doubt is a central theme, but I think Eco is also suggesting, although not so much in this scene, that redicule, that which produces laughter, is a method of undercutting ideals and that is why Jorge is so compelled to prevent the comic impulse.

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## Dark Muse

I also found the discussion about laguhter within the book to be an interesting one, though I have not yet gotten that far within the book as I have been reading other things as well, but I do recall their previous discussions on the subject

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## Janine

Hey, *Virgil,* you didn't vote yet for the book.

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## Virgil

> Hey, *Virgil,* you didn't vote yet for the book.


I didn't finish. I'm only a third of the way through. I will eventually.

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## Janine

> I didn't finish. I'm only a third of the way through. I will eventually.


Geez, I should have kept with it. I took the book back to my library thinking it was hopeless when I got sick. I didn't know you had not progressed further. Now I am into other reading so I guess I will have to abandon this for now - unless I relisten to the audiotapes - which are quite fascinating actually. A second time around would be so much better and clearer to me. I may do that if this is not too late in here and apparently this thread is left "open-ended". It is certainly a fascinating book to me.

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## thelastmelon

> I didn't finish. I'm only a third of the way through. I will eventually.


My vote is coming as well. I didn't read as much as I should've, when other books got in my way. I've got about 300 pages left.

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## Niamh

Just finished reading the novel. Brilliant!
Had ordered the movie on dvd, which arrived yesterday...might go watch that...
I had kind of suspected you know who (no spoiler for those who havent finished it yet) a few times, but then went nah!

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## Janine

> Just finished reading the novel. Brilliant!
> Had ordered the movie on dvd, which arrived yesterday...might go watch that...
> I had kind of suspected you know who (no spoiler for those who havent finished it yet) a few times, but then went nah!


Hi *Niamh,* Glad you liked the book. I guess it is not too late to post something in here - right? Now that pressure is off, I might try to listen again to the audiobook. I felt it was brilliant, too. If I make it to my library, in the next few days, I should try to check it out. It was quite good the first time around, but during some of it, I lost my full attention span, because I was multi-tasking. 
I would love to see that film. Cross-my-fingers, maybe this month it will come into my library. I think I saw it there once before. If not, maybe I can request it from another library. Let me know how is it, if you can.

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## papayahed

Just finished the book!! Whoo Hoo. Now I have to read through all the posts.

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## Virgil

Ok, I finally finished The Name of the Rose. I was a great book, and the ending was magnificent. I must say that I cannot claim to understand the core of the work, but I can sense the major themes. Here are some of them. (1) Semiotics, how do we interpret the signs in the world. (2) The labyrinth as a metaphor for our traveling through our lives. (3) The establishment of an understanding of the worlds order based on how we interpret the signs and how we wind our way through the labyrinth. (4) Subversion of the established understanding of the worlds order. (5) Apocalypse as the metaphor for the destruction of one world view so that can be constituted. 

I cant copy from a web site instances of these themes and I dont have the patience to type out huge swaths of narrative, but I think if you look through the scenes you can those themes. Im sure there are more. Heres a particular passage at the climax where Jorge and William confront each other and argue. This is Jorge speaking on why he has hid the Aristotle book on laughter and comedy:




> And so the cosmos, which for the Areopagite revealed itself to those who knew how to look up at the luminous cascade of the exemplary first cause, has become a preserve of terrestrial evidence for which they refer to an abstract agent. Before, we used to look to heaven, deigning only a frowning glance at the mire of matter; now we look at the earth, and we believe in the heavens because of earthly testimony. Every word of the Philosopher, by whom now even saints and prophets swear, has overturned the image of the world. But he had not succeeded in overturning the image of God. If this book were to becomehad become an object for open interpretation, we would have crossed the last boundary.


What Jorge is referring to is the transition that has occurred from the Platonic view of the universe held n the early middle ages to the Aristotelian view (represented by William of Occam and Thomas Aquinas) by the high middle ages, and that if this book (which I dont think actually exists or has been lost to history) would further undermine the nature of our understanding of God. 

William rebuts with the nature of jokes and how they liberate the mind, and actually concludes his rebuttal with the most fascinating of lines:




> The hand of God creates; it does not conceal.


That is an incredible line that strikes at the very themes of the novel. Perhaps if there is a central theme of the novel it may be that. Semiotics is a human endeavor, completely lacking in significance to the outside world. There is no real interpretation of the world, just the human mind making something out of what it sees. And so I think thats why the novel may be post modern. Ultimately it undermines all generated orders of the universe.

A side note, those that try to find signs in history toward some destination (for instance Marx) are foolishly interpreting signs, according to this understanding of reality. There are no signs or destinations predetermined. Just events.

Something I dont understand though. Why this animosity by Eco to Jorge Borges. Jorge, the character, the villain, is clearly modeled on Borges the writer. I dont understand that in the least.

If I have a negative criticism, the characters sometimes, actually many times, come across as stick figure ideas. They are not very deep or three dimensional. But this is a novel of ideas, rolled together into a cracker jack mystery story. I consider this a great novel.

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## JBI

The book actually did exist at one point. Many (I have heard 3/4 somewhere) of the works of Aristotle actually disappeared from the face of history. Only the first volume of poetics remains, but it is clear from the introduction that another volume was to follow. The actual references to it in the book fit in with scholarship meant to try and recreate the second book out of the first book's introduction by scholars over the years. I read somewhere that one of the influences of that on Eco was a subconscious borrowing from a renaissance copy of Poetics where the editor had actually written out the second book from the scraps of Aristotle.

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