The name of the Rose
The name of the rose is the first novel by the Italian scientist and writer Umberto Eco . Eco achieved a world success with it. The book was published in 1980 in the Italian original as Il nome della rosa and in 1982 in the German translation by Burkhart Kroeber .
The multi-layered work, epoch portrait , philosophical essay and, according to the external form, a broad-based historical detective novel , set in an Italian Benedictine abbey in 1327 , essentially paints a lively picture of the late Middle Ages with its political, social and religious conflicts. It is also interspersed with numerous allusions to the present, particularly to Italy in the 1970s. With his postscript on the name of the rose , Eco tried to open up access to the deeper layers of the book for readers who were less familiar with medieval studies , semiotics or postmodern culture .
The novel was filmed in 1986 by Jean-Jacques Annaud under the original title The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery in the lead role.
Summary
In a foreword entitled Naturally, an old manuscript , dated January 5, 1980 (Eco's 48th birthday), but not drawn by name, the story is passed off as a retelling of a lost old manuscript. This story takes place against the historical background of a dispute between the Pope and the Franciscan monastic order, which the Holy Roman Emperor patronized, in a rich medieval Benedictine abbey, where mysterious deaths occur. The abbey lies on the slopes of the Apennines ("between Lerici and La Turbie "). The English Franciscan Father William von Baskerville, who is on a political mission as the emperor's special envoy, is asked by the abbot of the Benedictine abbey to investigate. In his investigations, a world of religious feuds, forbidden and hidden passions and criminal energies opens up to him. In the end, with the secret second book of Aristotle's Poetics , which deals with the comedy, the whole abbey and its precious library burned up .
The novel is divided into seven days (analogous to the seven trumpets of the biblical apocalypse ) and is full of philosophical, theological, historical, contemporary and literary allusions and quotations.
action
As a novice and adlate in the care of the Franciscan William von Baskerville , the young Adson von Melk , who reports the novel, visited a Benedictine abbey in the Ligurian Apennines at the end of November 1327 - during the time of the Avignon papacy . There leading figures of the Franciscan order with an embassy of Pope John XXII. meet to discuss controversial theological questions of the pros and cons of the Vita apostolica , the poverty of the church, and at the same time to define positions of power between the Apostolic See , some monastic orders and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire .
Before the political and theological meeting takes place, the abbot of the monastery asks William, known for his acuteness (who was once an inquisitor but resigned from this office) to investigate a mysterious death that recently occurred in the monastery. While Williams was working on this case, four other monks died unexplained within a few days.
The elucidation of these deaths is the main narrative strand of the novel, which comes up with a number of ramifications and secondary lines that paint a complex and multi-colored picture of medieval life on all social levels and in particular the narrative Adson to numerous formative experiences and internal arguments with theological, historical and lead philosophical questions. Using the heretic leader Fra Dolcino and the inquisitor Bernard Gui , the phenomena of heresy and the inquisition are also treated. In addition, a tender love story develops on the edge between Adson and a nameless peasant girl whom he meets during a night chase, which he suddenly seduces and which he wants to save from the inquisition of Bernard Gui.
The trail leads William and Adson into the almost inaccessible labyrinth of the monastery library to the blind librarian Jorge von Burgos . This elderly monk is guarding a special treasure there, namely what is possibly the only surviving copy of Aristotle's “Second Book of Poetics ” , which - after the tragedy in the first part - deals with comedy . Jorge considers the positive attitude to joy and laughter represented in this book to be so dangerous that he poisoned it and would rather destroy it than let it fall into someone else's hands. When the attempt to finally kill William after the five monks with the poisoned book fails, Jorge sets the famous library on fire. William and Adson managed to escape from the burning library, but the fire seized the entire monastery and destroyed it.
In the end, William solved the case, but was unable to prevent the disaster. Resigned, he states: “I ran after an appearance of order like a man possessed, while I should have known that there is no order in the world.” Similarly discouraged, Adson ends his report with the words “Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus ”(“ The rose of yore is only available as a name, we only have bare names ”), a modified quote from Bernhard von Morlaix .
Emergence
Eco first started in March 1978 with no clear idea of the plot. The basic idea was "to poison a monk". He writes about this in his postscript to the name of the rose : “I think novels arise from such ideas, the rest is pulp that is gradually put on.” The main character should initially be a contemporary monk detective who reads Il manifesto . In order not to expose himself during his debut novel, however, he soon decided to have a medieval monk tell the story and give the novel a fictional story, starting with the childhood memories of the aged Adson up to his own hasty rough translation of a no longer tangible French book.
“So I sat down and read the medieval chroniclers (again) to get the rhythm and innocence of their narrative. You should speak for me and I would be free from any suspicion. Of every suspicion, but not of the weight of the past, of the echoes of intertextuality. For now I discovered what poets have always known (and have said so often): All books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has long been told. Homer knew that, Ariostus knew that, not to mention Rabelais and Cervantes. Ergo, my story could only begin with the handwriting that was found again, and that would (of course) only be a quote. So I first wrote the foreword, in which I put my story, wrapped in three other stories, in the fourth degree of pupation: I say that Vallet said that Mabillon said that Adson said ... "
title
The working title was first, as Eco writes, The Abbey of Crime and then, after the main character, Adson von Melk . However, this second title was rejected by the publisher. The final title refers to the sentence with which the book ends: Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus (The rose of yore is only a name, we only have bare names). It is a variation of a hexameter from Bernhard von Clunys (Bernhard von Morlaix ') De contemptu mundi (Of the contempt for the world), which says about the city of Rome: Stat Roma pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus (Ancient Rome stands only as a name, we only have names). Eco said about this hidden quote: The name of the rose sends the reader in all directions - not in any specific direction. Whoever wanted could also think of the girl's name.
It is noteworthy, however, that the rose as well as the name have been central concepts in the universal dispute since the Middle Ages , also precisely in the combination The name of the rose as an example of a link between concept and object, especially with Peter Abelard . The medieval philosopher Abelard used the example that the "rose" persists even if there are no roses, but only as a name; H. as a word meaning in language, not as reality. Abelard's tragic love affair with Heloisa can be found in the well-known illustration of a medieval manuscript of the rose novel (French: Le Roman de la Rose ), in which the rose symbolizes the woman he loves. One can assume that the book title alludes to these connections, especially since Eco was a recognized Medievalist and profound expert on medieval semiotics . His postscript on the 'Name of the Rose' is preceded by a poem by the Mexican poet Juana Inés de la Cruz , which in German reads, for example, “Rose, the red on the meadow, you spread yourself proudly, bathed in purple and crimson: splendor lush and fragrant. But no, because if you are beautiful, you will soon be unhappy ”.
characters
Many of the characters in the novel allude to historical figures and literary figures.
William of Baskerville
The Franciscan William of Baskerville is one of the two fictional main characters in the novel and is active as a “character interpreter and tracer”. His name "William" and his philosophical-epistemological attitude refer to the scholastic Wilhelm von Ockham ; its original name "von Baskerville" alludes to Sir Hugo Baskerville, a character in the detective novel The Dog of Baskerville (1901/1902), written by Arthur Conan Doyle . Doyle's character constellation (the detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson ) became typical of the genre for detective stories . Eco created such a constellation with William and his assistant Adson.
William is described in the book as tall and slender, with a penetrating look and a narrow, slightly curved nose. This physical description is almost a direct quote from Conan Doyle's description of Sherlock Holmes in his first detective novel A Study in Scarlet (dt. A Study in Scarlet ). Adson estimates his age at 50 years. He is one of the most astute inquisitors of the time.
In the novel, many historically documented personalities appear as secondary characters (for example the "heretic and witch hunter" Bernard Gui and the politician Michael von Cesena ) or are mentioned (such as Ludwig the Bavarian or Thomas Aquinas ). Eco makes William appear like a real historical figure from the late Middle Ages . Within the scholastic discourse, William embodies an extremely nominalist position. How modern his way of thinking and expressing is is indicated in many places in the novel, for example when he quotes Ludwig Wittgenstein (in Middle High German "translation") (anticipatory anachronism ).
Adson from Melk
The young Benedictine, named after the Benedictine monastery Melk Abbey , is the second fictional main character in the novel. He accompanies William of Baskerville as a young assistant (" Adlatus ") and his pupil. As the “chronicler” of the novel, he also takes on the role of the first-person narrator who, as an aged monk on the threshold of death, writes down “the memorable and horrific events” that “happened to me in my youth to witness”. His name (in the Italian original it is the Latin form "Adso" da Melk, the Italian form of the name would be "Adsone", "Azzo (ne)") is reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes' friend and assistant Dr. Watson and is apparently a reference to the name Watson. There are also clear allusions to Doyle in many of the dialogues ( “My dear Watson”, a frequent prelude to a Holmes monologue, becomes “My dear Adson” in Eco ). Another reference is suggested in the novel by a comment by Jorge von Burgos, namely to Adso von Montier-en-Der , the Benedictine monk and author of the most famous early medieval treatise on the Antichrist .
Jorge of Burgos
Jorge von Burgos is a blind seer in the novel. Jorge Luis Borges ' fantastic story La biblioteca de Babel , which is characterized by intertextuality and can be read as a parable of the European dictatorships of the 1930s / 40s and in Argentina under Perón , inspired Umberto Eco to write the novel The Name of the Rose . Borges' tale El Libro de Arena (The Sand Book), in which the narrator acquires a book with an apparently infinite number of infinitely thin pages, shows clear parallels to the novel: the narrator decides to place the eerie book among other books in the national library hide, as he does not dare to destroy it, but also does not want to keep it himself.
The name Jorge Burgos is an allusion to those same blind at the age Argentinean writer and librarian, who was due to his immense skills as a genius and still today as the founder of fantastic realism is known, but because of his support of the military coup of March 1976 as a reactionary hostility has been. By rejecting laughter because of his enlightening potential, Jorge von Burgos also proves to be a reactionary.
More figures
The German first edition from 1982 was (in consultation with the author) attached as a bookmark a kind of theater bill, which contained the following information under the heading "Dramatis Personae" :
- William von Baskerville - interpreter of signs and traces
- Adson von Melk - his student, chronicler
- Abbo von Fossanova - Abbot , once a corpse bearer
- Remigius von Varagine - cellar master
- Malachias von Hildesheim - librarian
- Severin von St. Emmeram - herb and poison researcher
- Nicolas von Morimond - craftsman, good
- Alinardus of Grottaferrata - Old Man
- Jorge von Burgos - blind seer
- Adelmus von Otranto - monster painter , dead
- Venantius von Salvemec - Aristotle expert
- Berengar of Arundel - Seducer
- Benno von Uppsala - a book lover
- Aymarus of Alessandria - intriguer
- Peter of Sant'Albano - intriguer
- Pacificus of Tivoli - intriguer
- Ubertin von Casale - mystic
- Michael von Cesena - politician
- Bertrand del Poggetto - Cardinal
- Bernard Gui - heretic and witch hunter
- Fra Dolcino - dead, still very living heretic leader
- Salvatore - poor devil, linguistic genius
- The girl - nameless, maybe the rose
- And other hard-working monks, minor brothers , papal legates , French archers , dead and living heretics , common people, people.
Classification and interpretations of literary history
The name of the rose is considered one of the most famous representatives of the postmodern novel . Typically, several literary genres are combined in one text. The novel has clear characteristics of the crime novel and the gaudy novel and contains clear allusions to works by Edgar Allan Poe , Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie .
Moreover, it is in the tradition of the historical novel . He tends not only to reproduce history, but also to address the problem of historiography itself. Examples of this are the mixture of historical and fictional characters, Eco's strong references to historical and contemporary intertexts , some of which are incorporated directly into the novel, and the occurrence of many anachronisms : The name of the rose deals with political and semiotic problems against the medieval background that are typical of the scientific discourses of the 20th century. The textuality itself, the properties of texts and their writing, and their reception will be addressed throughout. In literary studies, the term historiographical metafiction was coined for novels of this type . Furthermore, there are elements of a romance novel , not only in relation to Adson and the nameless peasant girl, but also in relation to the question of the relationships and passions people can enter into with God, with the knowledge and interpretation of truth and with earthly things.
Eco himself pointed out that the novel can also be read as a roman clef, stating that he wrote it under the influence of the Aldo Moro assassination. According to this reading, various groupings of the novel with political groups in Italy in the 1970s can be deciphered. Various critics identified the Dolcinians with the Red Brigades , the Franciscans with the Communists and the Benedictines with the Democrazia Cristiana . Despite Eco's own advice, such a reading is controversial, as it was sometimes perceived as overinterpretation. At another point, Eco himself contradicted his own declaration and stated that he did not care about questions of political topicality.
The name of the rose also shares numerous characteristics with trivial novels . The main characters are strongly typed, there is a clear separation into good and bad characters, and numerous clichés and stereotypes are invoked. This approach can be understood as pastiche , and thus as a conscious examination of the role of triviality in literature. This stylistic device is also typical of many postmodern novels; Stereotypes are deliberately called out in order to clearly expose them as stereotypes and to question them precisely through this.
reception
The novel The Name of the Rose was extraordinarily successful around the world - over eight million copies had been sold by 1989 alone. The publication was accompanied by extensive marketing and advertising campaigns as well as a great deal of media attention. The US magazine Newsweek featured Eco on the cover. After its publication, the novel became the subject of numerous literary studies. Even historians dealt with the drawn Eco image of the Middle Ages; Overall, the novel aroused a sudden interest in medieval research in broader circles. The unusually strong reception itself became the subject of studies; The Italian magazine Panorama surveyed 900 subjects with a higher education and came to the conclusion that only 16% of the readers of the novel were Ecos regular readers, whereas 40% had become aware of the marketing and media coverage.
The French daily Le Monde ranked The Name of the Rose 14th in their list of the 100 best books of the 20th century .
Editing in other media
In 1986 Jean-Jacques Annaud filmed the novel with Sean Connery as William von Baskerville. The film received mixed reviews but was also very successful commercially. In 1986 Richard Hey produced a six-hour radio play in German for Südwestfunk . In 2008 Ravensburger published a board game of the same name based on the novel. These adaptations continued to contribute to the sales success, although they changed the fabric in some cases significantly.
In 2019, an eight-part television series of the same name was released , which was produced in Italy under the direction of Giacomo Battiato .
On August 9, 2019, the first musical implementation of the material celebrated its premiere at the Erfurt Cathedral Stage Festival . The music is by Gisle Kverndokk , the libretto by Øystein Wiik .
literature
expenditure
- Umberto Eco, Il nome della rosa , Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri-Bompiani, Milan 1980
- Umberto Eco, Il nome della rosa , prima edizione riveduta e corretta, Bompiani, Milan 2012
- Umberto Eco, Der Name der Rose , translation by Burkhart Kroeber, Hanser , Munich 1982 (for 36 weeks from 1982 to 1984 at number 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list ); dtv , Munich 1986 ff .; New edition dtv, Munich 2019.
- Umberto Eco, Der Name der Rose , from the Italian by Burkhart Kroeber, Verlag Volk und Welt , Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-353-00108-5
Secondary
- Umberto Eco: Postscript to the "Name of the Rose" , transl. Burkhart Kroeber, Hanser, Munich 1984, ISBN 978-3-423-10552-1
- Hans-Jürgen Bachorski Ed .: Readings. Essays on Umberto Eco's “The Name of the Rose”. Kümmerle, Göppingen 1985
- Armin Burkhardt, Eberhard Rohse: Umberto Eco - Between literature and semiotics . Ars & Scientia, Braunschweig 1991, ISBN 3-9802066-2-9
- Theresa Coletti: Naming the Rose. Eco, medieval signs and modern theory , Cornell UP Ithaca, New York 1988 (engl.)
- Alfred Haverkamp , Alfred Heit (Ed.): Ecos Rosenroman. A colloquium. dtv , Munich 1987, ISBN 978-3-423-04449-3
- Klaus Ickert & Ursula Schick: The secret of the rose deciphered. Umberto Eco's world bestseller “The Name of the Rose” , Heyne, Munich 1986, ISBN 978-3-453-03732-8
- Max Kerner (Ed.): "... a dark and almost unbelievable story"? Medieval notes on U. Eco's monk novel “The Name of the Rose”. WBG , Darmstadt 1988
- Burkhart Kroeber (Ed.): Characters in Umberto Eco's novel “The Name of the Rose”. Essays from Europe and America , trans. BK and Michael Walter, Hanser, Munich 1987, ISBN 978-3-446-14882-6
- Teresa de Lauretis: Umberto Eco , La nuova Italia, Florence 1981, Il Castoro No. 179 (ital.)
- Thomas Stauder: Umberto Eco's “The Name of the Rose”. Research report and interpretation. Come with international bibliography 1980–1986. Palm & Enke, Erlangen 1988
- Cerstin Urban: UE: "The Name of the Rose." Series of King Explanations and Materials , 391. Bange, Hollfeld 1998, ISBN 3-8044-1627-6
Dissertations
- Barbara Niederer: Il trionfo della rosa. Indagine sulla ricezione del "Nome della rosa" , Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg , 1985
- Gabriella Borter-Sciuchetti von Ringgenberg BE: Approaches to the nameless. An interpretation of Umberto Eco's “Il nome della rosa” and Boris Vian's “L'Ecume des jours” , University of Zurich , 1987
Audio book
- The name of the rose , read by Gert Heidenreich , 20 CDs, RBB / Der Hörverlag, Munich 2008
radio play
- Der Name der Rose , radio play adaptation by Richard Hey , director: Otto Düben , BR / SWR / NDR 1986, 6 CDs, Der Hörverlag , Munich 2005
Web links
- Helge Schalk: Of names and roses. A suggestion for reading.
- Review of the novel by Lars Gustafsson
- Project work with background information ( Memento from April 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ After Dante , Purgatorio 3,51 : Tra Lerice e Turbìa la più diserta, la più rotta ruina (between Lerci and Turbia, now ruins).
- ↑ Umberto Eco: Postscript on the name of the rose . (German by B. Kroeber, German version 1986, 8th edition 1987) ISBN 3-423-10552-6 pp. 21-28. First published by Hanser in 1984.
- ↑ Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose . German from Burkhart Kroeber, Hanser, Munich 1982; dtv, Munich 1986 (of course, an old handwriting)
- ↑ Umberto Eco: Postscript on the name of the rose . (German by B. Kroeber, dtv 1986, 8th edition 1987) ISBN 3-423-10552-6 pp. 27 - 28. First published by Hanser in 1984.
- ^ De contemptu mundi, Liber primus, line 952 Wikisource
- ↑ Umberto Eco: Postscript on the name of the rose . (German by B. Kroeber, dtv 1986, 8th edition 1987) ISBN 3-423-10552-6 Chapter: Title and Meaning, pp. 9-14. First published by Hanser in 1984.
- ↑ See the allusion to this philosophical discussion in William Shakespeare : Romeo and Juliet , Act 2, Scene 2, in which Juliet says: “What's in a name? that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet " .
- ↑ William J. Hoye: Lecture on Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose - a novel about God and the truth: online
- ↑ Chapter II . Retrieved January 16, 2012.
- ↑ a b c Dieter Mersch: Umberto Eco for an introduction , Junius: Hamburg (1993), p. 14ff.
- ↑ a b Klaus Ickert / Ursula Schick: The Secret of the Rose decrypted , Heyne Munich (1986), pp 76ff.
- ^ Rudolf Radler (ed.), Kindlers Neues Literatur Lexikon , Munich (1989), Volume 5, p. 22
- ↑ a b c Alfred Heit: Introduction , in: ders. (Ed.): Ecos Rosenroman - ein Kolloquium , DTV: München (1987), p. 12
- ↑ Timo Niemeier: TMG sells the series "Der Name der Rose" to Sky. April 9, 2018, accessed April 18, 2019 .
- ↑ The Name of the Rose - Theater Erfurt. Retrieved August 16, 2019 .