One of the very unusual and interesting books falls into the hands of one translator. This book was called "Notes of Father Andson from Melk". They fell into the hands of that man exactly in Prague in 1968. On the book, on the most important page, the title page, it was written that this book was translated into French from Latin.

This text seemed to confirm that the book was translated from a manuscript, which was very valuable, since it was written in the seventeenth century. Also, this manuscript was written by a monk at the end of the fourteenth century. The person in whose hands these manuscripts fell began to search for everything about the identity of this monk, as well as Adson himself. But, alas, these searches yielded nothing, since there was almost no information. Then this book disappeared from sight, because it seemed to be a fake, which, perhaps, was the only one of its kind.

The manuscript actually talks about Adson. who was a monk. He recalls various events that he once witnessed, so long ago. It was 1327. In Europe, events are taking place that are very turbulent, as kings and emperors oppose each other, using their power. Also, as always, the church interferes in this matter, and its power is simply unlimited, which is sometimes very dangerous. King Louis is trying to confront the emperor John the twelfth himself.

Adson was still very young then, he was a novice. He then accompanied the thinker and theologian through the cities and large monasteries on his journey. Adson soon gets acquainted with Wilhelm, who is also about his age, he is also a novice. That is why their missions coincide. They travel together, together they do what they are constantly instructed to do. And they are always near famous people, from whom they receive important and not too important tasks. That is why they see well the history of their days, which they will read later, even without their participation.

One day an incident occurred that shocked many people, as well as the novices themselves, Wilhelm, and also Adson, because a fire broke out, which mainly affected the abbey. And it all happened because Jorge, an old man who got one mysterious book, decided to die himself so that no one would know the secret.

Picture or drawing Umberto Eco - The name of the rose

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Il nome della Rosa ("The Name of the Rose") is a book that became the debut in the literary field of U. Eco, professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna. The novel was first published in 1980 in the original language (Italian). The author's next work, Foucault's Pendulum, was an equally successful bestseller and finally introduced the author to the world of great literature. But in this article we will retell a summary of the “Name of the Rose”. There are two versions of the origin of the novel's title. The historian Umberto Eco refers us to the era of the debate between nominalists and realists, who debated what would remain in the name of the rose if the flower itself disappeared. But also the title of the novel evokes an allusion to the love storyline. Having lost his beloved, the hero Adson cannot even cry over her name, because he does not know him.

Roman-"Matryoshka"

The work "The Name of the Rose" is very complex, multifaceted. From the very preface, the author confronts the reader with the possibility that everything he reads about in this book will turn out to be a historical fake. A certain translator in Prague in 1968 gets "Notes of Father Adson Melksky". This is a book in French, published in the middle of the nineteenth century. But it is also a paraphrase of a seventeenth-century Latin text, which in turn is an edition of a late fourteenth-century manuscript. The manuscript was created by a monk from Melk. Historical inquiries about the identity of the medieval note-writer, as well as the scribes of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, have yielded no results. Thus, the author of the novel filigree crosses out a summary from the reliable historical events of his work. "The Name of the Rose" is replete with documentary errors. And for this, the novel is criticized by academic historians. But what events do we need to know about in order to understand the intricacies of the plot?

The historical context in which the novel takes place (summary)

"The Name of the Rose" sends us back to the month of November, 1327. At that time, ecclesiastical strife was shaking Western Europe. The papal curia is in the "Avignon captivity", under the heel of the French king. John Twenty-second is fighting on two fronts. On the one hand, he opposes the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis the Fourth of Bavaria, and on the other, he is fighting against his own servants of the Church. Francis of Assisi, who laid the foundation for the Friars Minor, advocated absolute poverty. He called for giving up worldly riches in order to follow Christ. After the death of Francis, the papal curia, wallowing in luxury, decided to send his students and followers to the walls of the monasteries. This caused a split in the ranks of the members of the order. From it stood out the Franciscan spiritualists who continued to stand on the positions of apostolic poverty. The pope declared them heretics, and persecution began. The emperor took advantage of this for his struggle for investiture, and supported the spiritualists. Thus, they become a significant political force. As a result, the parties entered into negotiations. The Franciscan delegation supported by the emperor and representatives of the Pope were to meet in a monastery unnamed by the author on the borders of Savoy, Piedmont and Liguria. In this monastery, the main events of the novel unfold. Let us recall that the discussion about the poverty of Christ and His Church is only a screen behind which intense political intrigues are hidden.

historical detective

The erudite reader will certainly catch the connection of Eco's novel with the stories of Conan Doyle. To do this, it is enough to know its summary. "The Name of the Rose" appears before us as Adson's most thorough notes. Here, an allusion is immediately born about Dr. Watson, who described in detail the investigations of his friend Sherlock Holmes. Of course, both heroes of the novel are monks. William of Baskerville, whose native land reminds us of Conan Doyle's story about the sinister dog in the moors, came to a Benedictine monastery on behalf of the emperor to prepare a meeting of spiritualists with representatives of the papal curia. But as soon as he and the novice Adson of Melk approached the monastery, events began to unfold so rapidly that they relegated the issues of the dispute about the poverty of the apostles and the Church to the background. The novel takes place over the course of one week. The mysterious murders that follow one after the other keep the reader in suspense all the time. Wilhelm, a diplomat, a brilliant theologian and, as evidenced by his dialogue with Bernard Guy, a former inquisitor, volunteered to find the culprit for all these deaths. "The Name of the Rose" is a book that is a detective novel by genre.

How a diplomat becomes an investigator

In where the meeting of the two delegations was to take place, the Franciscan William of Baskerville and the novice Adson of Melk arrive a few days before the start of the dispute. In its course, the parties had to express their arguments regarding the poverty of the Church as the heir of Christ and discuss the possibility of the arrival of the general of spirituals Michael of Caesin in Avignon to the papal throne. But only when they approached the gates of the monastery, the main characters meet the monks who ran out in search of a runaway mare. Here Wilhelm surprises everyone with his “deductive method” (another Umberto Eco reference to Conan Doyle), describing the horse and indicating the location of the animal. Abbon, struck by the deep mind of the Franciscan, asks him to deal with the case of a strange death that happened within the walls of the monastery. Adelma's body was found at the bottom of the cliff. It looked like he had been thrown out of the window of a tower hanging over the abyss, called Khramina. Abbon hints that he knows something about the circumstances of the death of the draftsman Adelm, but he is bound by a vow of secrecy of confession. But he gives Wilhelm the opportunity to investigate and interrogate all the monks in order to identify the killer.

Khramina

Abbon allowed the investigator to examine all corners of the monastery, except for the library. She occupied the third, upper floor of the Temple - a giant tower. The library had the glory of the largest book depository in Europe. It was built like a labyrinth. Only the librarian Malachi and his assistant Berengar had access to it. The second floor of the Khramina was occupied by a scriptorium, where scribes and illustrators worked, one of whom was the late Adelm. After conducting a deductive analysis, Wilhelm came to the conclusion that no one killed the draftsman, but he himself jumped off the high monastery wall, and his body was transferred by a landslide under the walls of Khramina. But this is not the end of the novel and its summary. "The Name of the Rose" keeps the reader in constant suspense. Another body was found the next morning. It was difficult to call it suicide: the body of an adherent of the teachings of Aristotle, Venantius, was sticking out of a barrel of pig blood (Christmas was approaching, and the monks were slaughtering cattle to make sausages). The victim also worked in the scriptorium. And this forced Wilhelm to pay more attention to the mysterious library. The mystery of the labyrinth began to interest him after the rebuff of Malachi. He single-handedly decided whether to provide the book to the monk who requested it, referring to the fact that the repository contains many heretical and pagan manuscripts.

Scriptorium

Not being allowed into the library, which will become the center of the intrigue of the narrative of the novel The Name of the Rose, the characters Wilhelm and Adson spend a lot of time on the second floor of the Temple. While talking with the young scribe Benzius, the investigator learns that in the scriptorium, two parties are silently but nevertheless fiercely confronting each other. Young monks are always ready to laugh, while older monks consider fun an unacceptable sin. The leader of this party is the blind monk Jorge, reputed to be a saintly righteous man. He is overwhelmed by eschatological expectations and the end times. But the draftsman Adelm so skillfully portrayed the funny beasts of the bestiary that his comrades could not help laughing. Benzius let slip that two days before the death of the illustrator, the silent confrontation in the scriptorium turned into a verbal skirmish. It was about the permissibility of depicting the funny in theological texts. Umberto Eco uses this discussion to lift the veil of secrecy: the library holds a book that can decide the dispute in favor of the champions of fun. Berenger let slip about the existence of a work that was associated with the words "the limit of Africa."

Deaths connected by one logical thread

The Name of the Rose is a postmodern novel. The author in the image of William of Baskerville subtly parodies Sherlock Holmes. But, unlike the London detective, the medieval investigator does not keep up with events. He cannot prevent the crime, and murders follow one after another. And in this we see a hint of Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians". But all these murders, one way or another, are connected with the mysterious book. Wilhelm learns the details of Adelma's suicide. Berengar lured him into a sodomite connection, promising in return some service that he could perform as an assistant librarian. But the draftsman could not bear the weight of his sin and ran to confess. And since the adamant Jorge was the confessor, Adelm could not relieve his soul, and in despair took his own life. It was not possible to interrogate Berengar: he disappeared. Feeling that all the events in the scriptorium are connected with the book, Wilhelm and Adson enter Khramina at night, using the underground passage, which they learned about by spying on the assistant librarian. But the library turned out to be a complex labyrinth. The heroes barely found a way out of it, having experienced the action of all sorts of traps: mirrors, lamps with mind-stupefying oil, etc. The missing Berengar was found dead in the bath. The monastery doctor Severin shows Wilhelm strange black marks on the fingers and tongue of the deceased. The same were found earlier in Venantius. Severin also said that he had lost a vial of a very poisonous substance.

big politics

With the arrival of two delegations to the monastery, in parallel with the detective, the "political" plot line of the book "The Name of the Rose" begins to develop. The novel is full of historical flaws. So, the inquisitor Bernard Guy, having arrived on a diplomatic mission, begins to investigate not heretical errors, but criminal offenses - murders within the walls of the monastery. The author of the novel plunges the reader into the vicissitudes of theological disputes. Meanwhile, Wilhelm and Adson enter the library for the second time and study the plan of the labyrinth. They also find the "limit of Africa" ​​- a tightly locked secret room. In the meantime, Bernard Guy is investigating murders using methods unusual for himself, judging by historical sources. He arrests and accuses the doctor's assistant, the former Dolchinian Balthazar and a beggar girl who came to the monastery to trade her body for scraps from the refectory, of witchcraft. The scholarly dispute between the representatives of the curia and the spiritualists turns into a trivial fight. But the author of the novel again leads the reader away from the plane of theology into the exciting detective genre.

Murder weapon

While Wilhelm was watching the fight, Severin came. He said that he had found a strange book in his infirmary. Naturally, this is the same one that Berengar carried out of the library, since his body was found in a bath near the hospital. But Wilhelm cannot leave, and after a while everyone is shocked by the news of the doctor's death. Severin's skull was broken, and the cellarer Remigius was captured at the scene of the crime. He claims to have found the doctor already dead. But Benzius, a very quick-witted young monk, told Wilhelm that he ran to the infirmary first, and then followed the incoming. He is sure that the librarian Malachi was here and hiding somewhere, and then mingled with the crowd. Realizing that the killer of the doctor has not yet managed to take out the book brought here by Berengar, Wilhelm looks through all the notebooks in the infirmary. But he overlooks the fact that several texts of manuscripts can be bound into one volume. Therefore, the more perceptive Benzius gets the book. The novel "The Name of the Rose" is not in vain called by readers' reviews very multifaceted. The plot again brings the reader into the plane of big politics. It turns out that Bernard Guy arrived at the monastery with the secret goal of disrupting the negotiations. To do this, he took advantage of the murders that befell the monastery. He accuses the former Dolchinian of the crimes, arguing that Balthazar shares the heretical views of spiritualists. Thus, they all bear part of the blame.

Solving the mystery of a mysterious book and a series of murders

Benzius gave the volume to Malachi without even opening it, as he was offered the post of assistant librarian. And it saved his life. Because the pages of the book were soaked in poison. Malachi also felt its effect - he died in convulsions right during the Mass. His tongue and fingertips were black. But then Abbon calls Wilhelm to him and firmly announces that he must leave the monastery the next morning. The abbot is sure that the reason for the murders was the settling of scores between the sodomites. But he's not going to give up. After all, he had already come close to solving the riddle. He figured out the key that opens the room "The Limit of Africa". And on the sixth night of their stay in the monastery, Wilhelm and Adson again enter the library. "The Name of the Rose" is a novel by Umberto Eco, the narrative of which either flows slowly, like a calm river, or develops rapidly, like a thriller. Blind Jorge is already waiting for the uninvited guests in the secret room. In his hands is the same book - the lost single copy of Aristotle's work "On Laughter", the second part of "Poetics". This "grey eminence", who kept everyone, including the abbot, in subjection, while still being sighted, soaked the pages of the book he hated with poison so that no one could read it. Aristotle enjoyed great reverence among theologians in the Middle Ages. Jorge was afraid that if laughter was confirmed by such an authority, then the whole system of his values, which he considered the only Christian ones, would collapse. For this, he lured the abbot into a stone trap and broke the mechanism that unlocked the door. The blind monk offers Wilhelm to read the book. But having learned that he knows the secret of the sheets soaked in poison, he begins to absorb the sheets himself. Wilhelm tries to take the book away from the old man, but he runs away, being perfectly oriented in the labyrinth. And when they overtake him, he pulls out the lamp and throws it into the rows of books. The spilled oil immediately covers the parchments with fire. Wilhelm and Adson miraculously escape the fire. The flame from the Temple is transferred to other buildings. Three days later, only smoking ruins remain on the site of the richest monastery.

Is there a moral in postmodern writing?

Humor, allusions and references to other works of literature, a detective story superimposed on the historical context of the early fourteenth century - these are not all the "chips" that the "Name of the Rose" lures the reader with. An analysis of this work allows us to judge that a deep meaning is hidden behind the apparent entertainment. The main protagonist is not William of Canterbury at all, and even more so not the modest author of Adson's notes. It is the Word that some try to bring out and others to stifle. The problem of inner freedom is raised by the author and rethought again. A kaleidoscope of quotes from famous works on the pages of the novel makes the erudite reader smile more than once. But along with witty syllogisms, we also encounter a more important problem. This is the idea of ​​tolerance, the ability to respect the universal world of another person. The issue of freedom of speech, the truth that should be "proclaimed from the rooftops" is opposed to the presentation of one's rightness as the last resort, attempts to impose one's point of view not by persuasion, but by force. In a time when the atrocities of ISIS proclaim European values ​​as unacceptable heresy, this novel seems even more relevant.

"Notes in the margins of the Name of the Rose"

After the publication of the novel in a matter of months became a bestseller. Readers simply flooded the author of The Name of the Rose with letters asking about the book. Therefore, in one thousand nine hundred and eighty-three, U. Eco let the curious into his “creative laboratory”. "Notes in the margins of The Name of the Rose" are witty and entertaining. In them, the best-selling author reveals the secrets of a successful novel. Six years after the release of the novel, The Name of the Rose was filmed. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud used famous actors in the filming. skillfully played the role of William of Baskerville. A young but very talented actor Christian Slater reincarnated as Adson. The film was a great success at the box office, justified the money invested in it and won numerous awards at film competitions. But Eco himself was very dissatisfied with such a film adaptation. He believed that the screenwriter greatly simplified his work, making it a product of popular culture. Since then, he has turned down all directors who asked for the opportunity to film his works.

Year of writing:

1980

Reading time:

Description of the work:

In 1980, the Italian writer Umberto Eco finished writing his first novel, The Name of the Rose, which was published in Italian the same year. Soon a Russian translation of the novel appeared, which was completed by Elena Kostyukovich.

In 1986, The Name of the Rose was filmed by director Jean-Jacques Annaud, but the author of the novel, Umberto Eco, expressed dissatisfaction with the film, although the film received many awards and won considerable success. After this incident, Eco did not allow anyone to film his works. Read the summary of the novel "The Name of the Rose".

Summary of the novel
rose name

The Notes of Father Adson from Melk fell into the hands of the future translator and publisher in Prague in 1968. On the title page of the French book of the middle of the last century, it appears that it is a transcription from the Latin text of the 17th century, allegedly reproducing, in turn, the manuscript , created by a German monk at the end of the XIV century. Investigations undertaken in relation to the author of the French translation, the Latin original, as well as the personality of Adson himself do not bring results. Subsequently, the strange book (perhaps a fake that exists in a single copy) disappears from the publisher's field of vision, adding one more link to the unreliable chain of retellings of this medieval story.

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

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

Having not yet entered the monastery, Wilhelm surprises the monks, who went out in search of a runaway horse, with accurate deductive conclusions. And the rector of the abbey immediately turns to him with a request to investigate the strange death that happened in the monastery. The body of the young monk Adelma was found at the bottom of the cliff, perhaps he was thrown out of the tower of a tall building hanging over the abyss, called Khramina here. The abbot hints that he knows the true circumstances of the death of Adelmo, but he is bound by a secret confession, and therefore the truth must come from other, unsealed lips.

Wilhelm receives permission to interrogate all the monks without exception and examine any premises of the monastery - except for the famous monastery library. The largest in the Christian world, capable of being compared with the semi-legendary libraries of the infidels, it is located on the top floor of the Temple; only the librarian and his assistant have access to it, only they know the layout of the storehouse, built like a labyrinth, and the system for arranging books on the shelves. Other monks: copyists, rubricators, translators, who flock here from all over Europe, work with books in the copying room - the scriptorium. The librarian alone decides when and how to provide the book to the one who claimed it, and whether to provide it at all, for there are many pagan and heretical works here.

In the scriptorium, Wilhelm and Adson meet the librarian Malachi, his assistant Berengar, the translator from Greek, Venantius, an adherent of Aristotle, and the young rhetorician Bentius. The late Adelm, a skilled draftsman, decorated the margins of his manuscripts with fantastic miniatures. As soon as the monks laugh, looking at them, the blind brother Jorge appears in the scriptorium with a reproach that laughter and idle talk are indecent in the monastery. This man, glorious for years, righteousness and learning, lives with a sense of the onset of the last times and in anticipation of the imminent appearance of the Antichrist. Looking around the abbey, Wilhelm comes to the conclusion that Adelm, most likely, was not killed, but committed suicide by throwing himself down from the monastery wall, and the body was subsequently transferred to Khramina by a landslide,

But on the same night, in a barrel of fresh blood from slaughtered pigs, the corpse of Venantius was found. Wilhelm, studying the traces, determines that the monk was killed somewhere else, most likely in Khramina, and thrown into a barrel already dead. But meanwhile, there are no wounds on the body, nor any injuries or signs of a struggle.

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

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

At night, the library is stronger than locks and prohibitions guarded by fear. Many monks believe that terrible creatures and the souls of dead librarians roam among the books in the darkness. Wilhelm is skeptical of such superstitions and does not miss the opportunity to study the vault, where Adson experiences the effects of illusion-creating distorting mirrors and a lamp impregnated with a vision-inducing compound. The labyrinth turns out to be more difficult than Wilhelm thought, and only by chance do they manage to find a way out. From the alarmed abbot, they learn about the disappearance of Berengar.

The dead assistant librarian is found only a day later in a bathhouse located next to the monastery hospital. The herbalist and healer Severin draws Wilhelm's attention that there are traces of some substance on Berengar's fingers. The herbalist says that he saw the same at Venantius, when the corpse was washed from the blood. In addition, Berengar's tongue turned black - apparently, the monk was poisoned before he drowned in the water. Severin says that once upon a time he kept an extremely poisonous potion, the properties of which he himself did not know, and then it disappeared under strange circumstances. The poison was known to Malachi, the abbot and Berengar.

Meanwhile, embassies are coming to the monastery. Inquisitor Bernard Guy arrives with the papal delegation. Wilhelm does not hide his dislike for him personally and his methods. Bernard announces that from now on he himself will be investigating incidents in the monastery, which, in his opinion, smell strongly of the devil.

Wilhelm and Adson infiltrate the library again to plan the maze. It turns out that the storage rooms are marked with letters, from which, if you pass in a certain order, catch words and names of countries are made up. The "limit of Africa" ​​is also discovered - a disguised and tightly closed room, but they do not find a way to enter it. Bernard Guy arrested and accused of witchcraft an assistant doctor and a village girl, whom he brings at night to appease his patron's lust for the remains of the monastery meals; On the eve, Adson also met her and could not resist the temptation. Now the fate of the girl is decided - as a witch she will go to the fire.

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

The herbalist's skull was smashed in by a metal celestial globe that stood on the laboratory table. Wilhelm searches Severin's fingers for traces of the same substance that Berengar and Venantius have, but the herbalist's hands are covered with leather gloves used when working with dangerous drugs. The cellarer Remigius was caught at the scene of the crime, who tries in vain to justify himself and declares that he came to the hospital when Severin was already dead. Benzius tells Wilhelm that he ran in here one of the first, then followed the incoming and is sure: Malachi was already here, waiting in a niche behind the canopy, and then imperceptibly mixed with other monks. Wilhelm is convinced that no one could take the big book out of here secretly and, if the killer is Malachi, it must still be in the laboratory. Wilhelm and Adson embark on a search, but overlook the fact that sometimes ancient manuscripts were intertwined several in one volume. As a result, the book remains unnoticed by them among others that belonged to Severin, and ends up with the more perceptive Bentius.

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

To Wilhelm's demand to hand over the book, Benzius replies that, without even starting to read, he is more faithful to Malachi, from whom he received an offer to take the vacant position of an assistant librarian. A few hours later, during a church service, Malachi dies in convulsions, his tongue is black and on his fingers the marks already familiar to Wilhelm.

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

But Wilhelm is not going to retreat, because he came close to the decision. At a random prompt from Adson, he manages to read in the cryptography of Venantius the key that opens the "limit of Africa." On the sixth night of their stay at the abbey, they enter the secret room of the library. Blind Jorge is waiting for them inside.

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

Jorge admits that he understood from the very beginning that sooner or later Wilhelm would discover the truth, and he watched the Englishman approach it step by step. He hands Wilhelm a book, for the desire to see which five people have already paid with their lives, and offers to read it. But the Franciscan says that he figured out this diabolical trick of his, and restores the course of events. Many years ago, having heard someone in the scriptorium showing interest in the "limit of Africa", the still sighted Jorge steals poison from Severin, but does not immediately let him into action. But when Berengar, out of boasting before Adelmo, once behaved unrestrainedly, the already blind old man goes upstairs and soaks the pages of the book with poison. Adelm, who agreed to a shameful sin in order to touch the secret, did not use the information obtained at such a price, but, seized with mortal horror after confession from Jorge, tells Venantius about everything. Venantius reaches the book, but he has to wet his fingers on his tongue to separate the soft parchment sheets. He dies before he can get out of the Temple. Berengar finds the body and, fearing that the investigation will inevitably reveal what was between him and Adelmo, he transfers the corpse to a barrel of blood. However, he, too, became interested in the book, which he snatched in the scriptorium almost out of Wilhelm's hands. He brings her to the hospital, where he can read at night without fear of being seen by anyone. And when the poison begins to act, he rushes into the pool in the vain hope that the water will extinguish the flame that devours him from the inside. So the book gets to Severin. The sent Jorge Malachi kills the herbalist, but he himself dies, wishing to know what such a forbidden thing is contained in the object, because of which he was made a murderer. The last in this row is the abbot. After a conversation with Wilhelm, he demanded an explanation from Jorge, moreover: he demanded to open the “limit of Africa” and put an end to the secrecy established in the library by the blind man and his predecessors. Now he is suffocating in the stone sack of yet another underground passage to the library, where Jorge locked him up and then broke the mechanisms that controlled the doors.

“So the dead died in vain,” says Wilhelm: now the book has been found, and he managed to protect himself from the poison of Jorge. But in fulfillment of his plan, the elder is ready to accept death himself. Jorge tears up the book and eats the poisoned pages, and when Wilhelm tries to stop him, he runs, unerringly navigating the library from memory. The lamp in the hands of the pursuers still gives them some advantage. However, the overtaken blind man manages to take away the lamp and throw it aside. Spilled oil starts a fire;

Wilhelm and Adson rush to fetch water, but return too late. The efforts of all the brethren raised in alarm lead to nothing; the fire breaks out and spreads from Khramina first to the church, then to the rest of the buildings.

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

Please note that the summary of the novel "The Name of the Rose" does not reflect the full picture of the events and characterization of the characters. We recommend that you read the full version of the work.

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WITHcontent

Introduction

1. General characteristics of Italian literature

2. The figurative system of the novel by W. Eco "The Name of the Rose"

3. The problems of the novel by W. Eco "The Name of the Rose"

Conclusion

List of sources used

INkeeping

One of the figures that appeared with a significant delay in the field of view of the Russian-speaking reader is the Italian semiotician, writer and philosopher Umberto Eco. For a Russian-speaking reader, U. Eco can become a guide to Italian culture, shed light on many of its aspects, so the study of his work is a very urgent task in Russia.

In Russia, the name of Umberto Eco first sounded loudly in 1988 in connection with the publication of the Russian translation of the novel The Name of the Rose (pote della rosa, 1980), while in Western countries they started talking about the Italian intellectual since 1962, after the appearance his first book, The Open Work (Opera aperta). Thus, Eco became known to the general Russian reader primarily as a novelist.

Nevertheless, "The Name of the Rose" today is one of the most notable works of the writer, which determines the relevance of the control work.

The subject of the control work is the novel by W. Eco "The Name of the Rose", the goal is to analyze the problems and figurative system of the novel.

1. General characteristics of Italian literature

Modern Italian is derived from Latin, which was spoken in the peninsula after the collapse of the Roman Empire. We still do not know to what extent this language was similar to classical literary Latin. Most likely it was a mixture of both languages. A small number of words of Greek origin were borrowed during the era of Byzantine domination, others came later with the Crusaders. In Sicily, you can find a few Arabic words, these are traces of the conquest of her by the Saracens. Other words come indirectly from Latin, they passed through French and Provençal, while the long period of the Teutonic conquest had less influence on the Italian vocabulary and words of Germanic origin are found less frequently.

The heyday of literature, both written and oral folk, came in the 13th century. It was a period of political and cultural renaissance. After centuries of barbarian conquest, a period of renaissance in literature and art has finally begun. Among the most popular genres are: religious poetry, vagante poetry, Checo Anguileri's comic satire, gallant literature (chansons de geste from French), Brunetto Latini's didactic and moralistic prose, and popular love poetry.

Italian literature, strictly speaking, begins at the beginning of the 13th century. Among the works worth mentioning are the early lyrics of St. Francis of Assia, who wrote one of the early Italian poems, the famous "Cantica del Sole", or "Laudes Creaturarum" (1225), a "sublime improvisation" more than a literary work. The most important literary movement was what Dante called "Dolce stil novo".

Among the most successful writers of the last few decades, some deserve mention: Italo Calvano, whose philosophical tales have an original and fantastic plot ("I nostri antenati"); Corlo Emilio Gaddam, who uses anti-traditional language to portray modern society; Dino Busatti ("Il deserto dei Tartari") and Elsa Morante ("La storia"), who study human psychology. Umberto Eco's historical mystical novel "Il nome della rosa" ("The Name of the Rose") has earned international recognition.

2. The figurative system of the novel by W. Eco "The Name of the Rose"

In his novel The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco paints a picture of the medieval world, describing historical events with extreme accuracy. For his novel, the author chose an interesting composition. In the so-called introduction, the author reports that he comes across an old manuscript of a monk named Adson, who tells about the events that happened to him in the XIV century. "In a state of nervous excitement", the author "revels in Adson's horrific tale" and translates it for the "modern reader". The subsequent account of events is supposedly a translation of an old manuscript.

The manuscript of Adson itself is divided into seven chapters, according to the number of days, and every day - into episodes dedicated to worship. Thus, the action in the novel takes place over seven days.

The story begins with a prologue: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

Adson’s writing refers us to the events of 1327, “when Emperor Louis entered Italy, he was preparing, according to the providence of the Most High, to shame the vile usurper, Christ-seller and heresiarch, who in Avilion covered the holy name of the apostle with shame” . Adson introduces the reader to the events that preceded it. At the beginning of the century, Pope Clement V moved the apostolic throne to Avignon, leaving Rome to be plundered by local sovereigns. “In 1314, five German sovereigns in Frankfurt elected Louis of Bavaria as supreme overlord of the empire. However, on the same day, on the opposite bank of the Main, the Palatine Count of the Rhine and the Archbishop of the city of Cologne elected Frederick of Austria for the same board. “In 1322, Louis of Bavaria defeated his rival Frederick. John (the new pope) excommunicated the winner, and he declared the pope a heretic. It was in this year that the chapter of the Franciscan brothers gathered in Perugia, and their general Michael of Cesene<...>proclaimed as the truth of faith the position of the poverty of Christ. Dad was unhappy<...>, in 1323 he rebelled against the doctrine of the Franciscans<...>Louis, apparently, at the same time discerned in the Franciscans, now hostile to the pope, powerful comrades-in-arms<...>Louis, having concluded an alliance with the defeated Frederick, entered Italy, took the crown in Milan, suppressed the discontent of the Visconti, overlaid Pisa with an army<...>and quickly entered Rome.

These are the events of that time. I must say that Umberto Eco, as a true connoisseur of the Middle Ages, is extremely accurate in the events described.

So, events unfold at the beginning of the 14th century. A young monk, Adson, on behalf of whom the story is being told, assigned to the learned Franciscan William of Baskerville, arrives at the monastery. Wilhelm, a former inquisitor, is assigned to investigate the unexpected death of the monk Adelm of Otrans. Wilhelm and his assistant begin an investigation. They are allowed to talk and walk everywhere except the library. But the investigation comes to a standstill, because all the roots of the crime lead to the library, which is the main value and treasury of the abbey, which contains a huge number of priceless books. Entrance to the library is prohibited even for monks, and books are not given to everyone and not all that are available in the library. In addition, the library is a labyrinth, with legends about "wandering fires" and "monsters" associated with it. Wilhelm and Adson visit the library under the cover of night, from which they hardly manage to get out. There they meet new mysteries.

Wilhelm and Adson reveal the secret life of the abbey (meetings of monks with corrupt women, homosexuality, drug use). Adson himself succumbs to the temptation of a local peasant woman.

At this time, new murders are committed in the abbey (Venantius is found in a barrel of blood, Berengar of Arundel in a bath of water, Severin of St. Emmeran in his room with herbs), connected with the same secret that leads to the library, namely to a certain book. Wilhelm and Adson manage to partially unravel the labyrinth of the library and find the "African Limit" cache, a walled-up room in which the treasured book is stored.

To solve the murders, Cardinal Bertrand Podzhetsky arrives at the abbey and immediately gets down to business. He apprehends Salvatore, a wretched freak who, wanting to attract the attention of a woman with a black cat, a rooster and two eggs, was apprehended along with an unfortunate peasant woman. The woman (Adson recognized her as his friend) was accused of witchcraft and imprisoned.

During the interrogation, the cellarer Remigius tells about the torments of Dolchin and Margarita, who were burned at the stake, and how he did not resist this, although he had a relationship with Margarita. In desperation, the cellarer takes upon himself all the murders: Adelma from Ontanto, Venantius from Salvemek "for being too learned", Berengar of Arundel "out of hatred for the library", Severinus of St. Emmeran "for collecting herbs".

But Adson and Wilhelm manage to unravel the mystery of the library. Jorge - a blind old man, the main keeper of the library, hides from everyone the "Limit of Africa", which contains the second book of Aristotle's "Poetics", which is of great interest, around which there are endless disputes in the abbey. So, for example, in the abbey it is forbidden to laugh. Jorge acts as some kind of judge for anyone who laughs inappropriately or even draws funny pictures. In his opinion, Christ never laughed, and he forbids others to laugh. Everyone treats Jorge with respect. They are afraid of him. Ozhnako, Jorge for many years was the real ruler of the abbey, who knew and kept all his secrets from the rest, when he began to go blind, he allowed an ignorant monk to the library, and put a monk who obeyed him at the head of the abbey. When the situation got out of control, and many people wished to unravel the mystery of the "limit of Africa" ​​and take possession of the book of Aristotle, Jorge steals poison from Severin's laboratory and impregnates the pages of the cherished book with it. The monks, turning over and wetting their fingers with saliva, gradually die, with the help of Malachy, Jorge kills Severin, locks the Abbot, who also dies.

Wilhelm solves all this with his assistant. Finally, Jorge gives them Aristotle's Poetics to read, which rebuts Jorge's ideas about the sinfulness of laughter. According to Aristotle, laughter has a cognitive value, he equates it with art. For Aristotle, laughter is "good, pure power". Laughter is able to relieve fear, when a man laughs, he does not care about death. "However, the law can only be kept with the help of fear." Out of this idea a "Luciferian spark" could "fly out", from this book "a new, crushing desire could be born to destroy death by liberation from fear". That's what Jorge is so afraid of. All his life, Jorge did not laugh and forbade others to do this, this gloomy old man, hiding the truth from everyone, established a lie.

As a result of Jorge's persecution, Adson drops the lantern and a fire breaks out in the library, which cannot be put out. In three days the whole abbey will burn to the ground. Only a few years later, Adson, traveling through those places, comes to the ashes, finds a few precious fragments, so that later, in one word or sentence, at least an insignificant list of lost books can be restored.

This is the interesting plot of the novel. "The Name of the Rose" is a kind of detective story set in a medieval monastery.

Critic Cesare Zaccaria believes that the writer's appeal to the detective genre is due to the fact that "this genre was better than others in expressing the insatiable charge of violence and fear inherent in the world in which we live." Yes, undoubtedly, many particular situations of the novel and its main conflict are quite “read” as an allegorical reflection of the situation of the current, twentieth century.

3. The problems of the novel by W. Eco "The Name of the Rose"

The events in the novel give us the idea that we have a detective in front of us. The author, with suspicious persistence, offers just such an interpretation.

Lotman Yu. writes that “the fact that the Franciscan monk of the 14th century, the Englishman William of Baskerville, distinguished by remarkable insight, sends the reader with his name to the story of the most famous detective feat of Sherlock Holmes, and his chronicler bears the name of Adson (a transparent allusion to Watson in Conan Doyle), clearly orients the reader. Such is the role of references to narcotic drugs used by Sherlock Holmes of the 14th century to maintain intellectual activity. Like his English counterpart, periods of indifference and prostration in his mental activity are interspersed with periods of excitement associated with chewing mysterious herbs. It is during these last periods that his logical abilities and intellectual strength manifest themselves in all their splendor. The very first scenes introducing us to William of Baskerville seem to be parodic quotes from the Sherlock Holmes epic: the monk accurately describes the appearance of a runaway horse that he has never seen, and just as accurately “calculates” where to look for it, and then restores the picture of the murder - the first of those that took place within the walls of the ill-fated monastery, in which the plot of the novel unfolds - although he also did not witness it.

Lotman Yu. suggests that this is a medieval detective, and his hero is a former inquisitor (Latin inquisitor is an investigator and a researcher at the same time, inquistor rerom naturae is a researcher of nature, so Wilhelm did not change his profession, but only changed the scope of his logical abilities) - this Sherlock Holmes in the cassock of a Franciscan, who is called upon to unravel some extremely ingenious crime, neutralize plans and, like a punishing sword, fall on the heads of criminals. After all, Sherlock Holmes is not only a logician - he is also a police count of Monte Cristo - a sword in the hands of a Higher Power (Monte Cristo - Providence, Sherlock Holmes - Law). He overtakes Evil and does not allow him to triumph.

However, in the novel by W. Eco, events do not develop at all according to the canons of a detective, and the former inquisitor, the Franciscan William of Baskerville, turns out to be a very strange Sherlock Holmes. The hopes placed on him by the abbot of the monastery and the readers do not come true in the most decisive way: he always comes too late. His witty syllogisms and thoughtful conclusions do not prevent any of the entire chain of crimes that make up the detective layer of the plot of the novel, and the mysterious manuscript, the search for which he devoted so much effort, energy and mind, dies at the very last moment, slipping away forever from his hands.

Yu. Lotman writes: “In the end, the whole “detective” line of this strange detective story turns out to be completely obscured by other plots. The reader's interest switches to other events, and he begins to realize that he was simply fooled, that, having evoked in his memory the shadows of the hero of the "Baskerville Hound" and his faithful companion-chronicler, the author invited us to take part in one game, while he himself plays completely another. It is natural for the reader to try to figure out what kind of game is being played with him and what are the rules of this game. He himself finds himself in the position of a detective, but the traditional questions that always worry all Sherlock Holmes, Maigret and Poirot: who committed (commits) the murder (s) and why, are supplemented by a much more complex one: why and why does the cunning semiotician from Milan, appearing in a triple mask: a Benedictine monk of a provincial German monastery of the 14th century, the famous historian of this order, Father J. Mabillon, and his mythical French translator, Abbé Vallee?

According to Lotman, the author, as it were, opens two doors for the reader at once, leading in opposite directions. On one is written: detective, on the other: historical novel. The hoax with the story about the supposedly found and then lost bibliographic rarity refers us to the stereotypical beginnings of historical novels in the same parodic and frank way as the first chapters to the detective story.

The hidden plot core of the novel is the struggle for the second book of Aristotle's Poetics. Wilhelm's desire to find the manuscript hidden in the labyrinth of the monastery's library and Jorge's desire to prevent its discovery underlie the intellectual duel between these characters, the meaning of which is revealed to the reader only in the last pages of the novel. This is a fight for laughter. On the second day of his stay in the monastery, Wilhelm "pulls out" from Bencius the content of an important conversation that had recently taken place in the scriptorium. “Jorge declared that it was inappropriate to equip books containing truths with ridiculous drawings. And Venantius said that even Aristotle speaks of jokes and word games as a means of better knowledge of truths and that, therefore, laughter cannot be a bad thing if it contributes to the revelation of truths<...>Venantius, who knows perfectly ... knew Greek very well, said that Aristotle deliberately dedicated a book to laughter, the second book of his Poetics, and that if such a great philosopher devotes a whole book to laughter, laughter must be a serious thing ".

Laughter for Wilhelm is connected with the mobile, creative world, with the world open to freedom of judgment. Carnival liberates thought. But the carnival has another face - the face of rebellion.

Kelar Remigius explains to Wilhelm why he joined the Dolcino rebellion: "... I can’t even understand why I did what I did then. You see, in the case of Salvador, everything is quite understandable. He is from serfs, his childhood - squalor, a hungry pestilence... Dolchin for him personified the struggle, the destruction of the power of masters... But everything was different for me! My parents are city dwellers, I have never seen hunger! to say ... Something like a huge holiday, a carnival. At Dolchin in the mountains, until we began to eat the meat of comrades who died in the battle ... Until so many died of hunger that it was no longer possible to eat, and we dumped corpses from the slopes of the Rebello to the grass of vultures and wolves ... Or maybe even then ... we breathed the air of ... how to say? Freedom.

Until then, I didn't know what freedom was." "It was a wild carnival, and at carnivals everything is always upside down."

Umberto Eco, according to Yu. Lotman, is well aware of the theory of the carnival of M. M. Bakhtin and the deep trace that it left not only in science, but also in the social thought of Europe in the middle of the 20th century. He knows and takes into account the works of Huizinga, and books like H. G. Cox's "Festival of Fools". But his interpretation of laughter and carnival, which puts everything upside down, does not completely coincide with Bakhtin's. Laughter does not always serve freedom.

According to Lutman Yu., Eco's novel is, of course, the creation of today's thought and could not have been created even a quarter of a century ago. It shows the impact of historical research, which in recent decades has subjected to revision many deeply rooted ideas about the Middle Ages. After the work of the French historian Le Goff, defiantly titled "For a new Middle Ages", the attitude towards this era has undergone a broad rethinking. In the works of historians Philip Aries, Jacques Delumeau (France), Carlo Ginzburg (Italy), A. Ya. Gurevich (USSR) and many others, interest in the course of life, in "non-historical personalities", "mentality", i. that is, to those features of the historical worldview that people themselves consider so natural that they simply do not notice, to heresies as a reflection of this popular mentality. This radically changed the relationship between the historian and the historical novelist, who belongs to that artistically most significant tradition that came from Walter Scott and to which Manzoni, Pushkin, and Leo Tolstoy belonged (historical novels about "great people" rarely led to artistic successes). , but were often popular with the most illegible reader). If before the novelist could say: I am interested in what historians do not do, now the historian introduces the reader to those corners of the past that were previously visited only by novelists.

Umberto Eco closes this circle: a historian and a novelist at the same time, he writes a novel, but looks through the eyes of a historian, whose scientific position is shaped by the ideas of our day. An informed reader catches in the novel echoes of discussions about the medieval utopia of the "country of Kokan" (Kukany) and extensive literature about an inverted world (interest in texts "turned inside out" has acquired a downright epidemic character in the last two decades). But not only a modern view of the Middle Ages - in Umberto Eco's novel, the reader is constantly faced with a discussion of issues that affect not only historical, but also the burning interests of readers. We will immediately discover the problem of drug addiction, and disputes about homosexuality, and reflections on the nature of left and right extremism, and reasoning about the unconscious partnership of the victim and the executioner, as well as the psychology of torture - all this equally belongs to both the XIV and XX centuries.

A cross-cutting motif sounds persistently in the novel: a utopia realized with the help of blood flows (Dolcino), and serving the truth with the help of lies (the inquisitor). This is a dream of justice, the apostles of which do not spare either their own or other people's lives. Broken by torture, Remigius shouts to his pursuers: “We wanted a better world, peace and goodness for everyone. We wanted to kill war, the war that you bring into the world. All wars are because of your stinginess! And now you prick our eyes with what for the sake of justice and happiness, we shed a little blood! That's the whole trouble! That we shed too little of it! And it was necessary so that all the water in Carnasco turned scarlet, all the water that day in Stavello.

But not only utopia is dangerous, any truth that excludes doubts is dangerous. So, even a student of Wilhelm at some point is ready to exclaim: "It's good that the Inquisition arrived in time," because he "was seized by the thirst for truth." Truth undoubtedly breeds fanaticism. The truth is beyond doubt, the world without laughter, faith without irony - this is not only the ideal of medieval asceticism, it is also the program of modern totalitarianism. And when, at the end of the novel, the opponents stand face to face, we have before us images not only of the XIV, but also of the XX century. "You are the devil," says Wilhelm Jorge.

Eco does not dress modernity in the clothes of the Middle Ages and does not force the Franciscan and Benedictine to discuss the problems of general disarmament or human rights. He simply discovered that both the time of William of Baskerville and the time of its author are one epoch, that from the Middle Ages to the present day we are struggling with the same questions and that, consequently, it is possible, without violating historical plausibility, to create a topical novel from life. XIV century.

The correctness of this idea is confirmed by one essential consideration. The action of the novel takes place in a monastery, the library of which contains the richest collection of Apocalypses, once brought by Jorge from Spain. Jorge is full of eschatological expectations and infects the entire monastery with them. He preaches the power of the Antichrist, who has already subjugated the whole world, entangled it with his conspiracy, and became the prince of this world: "He is tense in his speeches and in his labors, and in cities and estates, in his arrogant universities and in cathedrals." The power of Antichrist surpasses the power of God, the power of Evil is stronger than the power of Good. This sermon sows fear, but it is also born of fear. In an era when the ground is slipping from under people's feet, the past is losing confidence, and the future is painted in tragic colors, people are seized by an epidemic of fear. Under the power of fear, people turn into a crowd, obsessed with atavistic myths. They draw a terrible picture of the victorious procession of the devil, imagine the mysterious and powerful conspiracies of his servants, the hunt for witches begins, the search for dangerous but invisible enemies. An atmosphere of mass hysteria is created when all legal guarantees and all the gains of civilization are cancelled. It is enough to say about a person "sorcerer", "witch", "enemy of the people", "freemason", "intellectual" or any other word that in a given historical situation is a sign of doom, and his fate is decided: he automatically moves to the place of the "culprit". of all troubles, a participant in an invisible conspiracy", any defense of which is tantamount to a recognition of one's own involvement in an insidious host.

Umberto Eco's novel begins with a quote from the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word" - and ends with a Latin quote, melancholy reporting that the rose has withered, and the word "rose", the name "rose" has remained. The real hero of the novel is the Word. Wilhelm and Jorge serve him differently. People create words, but words control people. And the science that studies the place of the word in culture, the relationship between the word and the person, is called semiotics. "The Name of the Rose" - a novel about the word and man - is a semiotic novel.

It can be assumed that the action of the novel takes place in a medieval monastery for a reason. Given Eco's predilection for understanding origins, you have a better idea of ​​what prompted him to write the novel The Name of the Rose in the late 70s. In those years, it seemed that Europe had only a few “minutes” left before the apocalyptic “midnight” in the form of a military and ideological confrontation between the two systems, the seething of various movements from ultra to “green” and sexual minorities in one common cauldron of intertwined concepts, heated speeches, dangerous actions. Eco challenged.

Describing the background of modern ideas and movements, he thereby tried to cool their ardor. In general, a well-known practice of art is the murder or poisoning of fictional characters as a warning to the living.

Eco directly writes that in the Middle Ages the roots of all our modern “hot” problems, and the feuds of monks of different orders are not much different from the fights between Trotskyists and Stalinists.

Wconclusion

The book is an excellent demonstration of the scholastic method, which was very popular in the fourteenth century. William shows the power of deductive reasoning. The solution to the central mystery of the murder depends on the content of the mysterious book (Aristotle's book on comedy, the only copy of which has been preserved in the monastery library).

The novel is the embodiment in practice of Umberto Eco's theoretical ideas about postmodernist work. It includes several semantic layers accessible to different readerships. For a relatively wide audience, "The Name of the Rose" is a complexly constructed detective story in historical scenery, for a somewhat narrower one - a historical novel with a lot of unique information about the era and partly a decorative detective story, for an even narrower one - a philosophical and cultural reflection on the difference between the medieval worldview from the modern, about the nature and purpose of literature, its relationship with religion, the place of both in the history of mankind, and similar problems.

The circle of allusions contained in the novel is exceptionally wide and ranged from public to understandable only to specialists. The protagonist of the book, William of Baskerville, on the one hand, with some of his features points partly to William of Ockham, partly to Anselm of Canterbury, on the other hand, clearly refers to Sherlock Holmes (uses his deductive method, named after one of the most famous Holmesian texts, except In addition, the parallel between the satellites - Adson and Watson is obvious). His main adversary, the blind monastic librarian Jorge, is a complex parody of the classic postmodern literature Jorge Luis Borges, who was the director of the national library of Argentina, and became blind in old age (in addition, Borges owns an impressive image of civilization as a “Babylonian library”, from which , perhaps, the whole novel by Umberto Eco grew up).

italian literature ecohero novel

WITHsqueakusedsources

1. Andreev L. Artistic synthesis and postmodernism //Questions of Literature.- 2001.- No. 1.- p.3-38

2. Zatonky D. Postmodernism in the historical interior // Questions of Literature. - 2006. - No. 3. - p. 182-205.

3. Kostyukovich E. Eco Orbits // Eco W. The name of the rose. - M., 2008. - 129s.

4. Lotman Yu. Exit from the labyrinth // Eco U. The name of the rose. - M: Book Chamber, 2009. - 456s.

5. Lee Marshall and Umberto Eco. Under the Net (interview)//"The Art of Cinema" 9/2007 - p.11

6. Reingold S. “Poison the Monk” or Human Values ​​According to Umberto Eco // Foreign Literature. -2004.-№4. - p.24-25

7. Umberto Eco Internal reviews. Translation from Italian by Elena Kostyukovich // "Foreign Literature" 2007, No. 5 - p.20-22

8. Travina E. Umberto ECO // Reality is a fantasy that is believed in. Questions of Literature. 2006 №5 - p.17-19

9. Eco U. Notes on the margins of the “Name of the Rose” // Name of the Rose. - M: Book Chamber, 2009 - 489s.

10. Eco W. The name of the rose. Detective. Issue. 2. -M.: Book chamber, 2009. - 496s.

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Biography and career of Jerome David Salinger - one of the most mysterious and enigmatic writers of the 20th century. The content and analysis of the novel "The Catcher in the Rye". Thinking, psychology and character of Holden Caulfield - the protagonist of the novel.

composition, added 05/21/2013


Brief retelling of Jerome D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. The image of the protagonist, his character and place in the novel. Features of the translation of the work. The transfer of slang in the translation of the work. Editorial analysis in accordance with GOST 7.60-2003.

term paper, added 08/31/2014


Literary definition of the image. Construction of a figurative system of a work of art. Ways of linguistic embodiment of the system of images. The writing style and visual techniques of the novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Images of the main characters, their linguistic embodiment.

thesis, added 03/20/2011


Who is the main character of the novel "Eugene Onegin"? Similarities and differences between the author and the protagonist. Lyrical digressions of the poet about the meaning of human existence. The ideal positive image of the Russian woman Tatyana Larina as opposed to the image of Onegin.

abstract, added 03/23/2010


A brief description of the artistic image of Konstantin Levin as the hero of the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "Anna Karenina". Features of the psychological portrait of Levin and the definition of the role of the hero in the storyline of the novel. Estimation of spirituality and personality of Levin's character.

abstract, added 01/18/2014


The study of the history of the creation of the novel "Sunday", its place in the work of L.N. Tolstoy. Characterization of the artistic and ideological and thematic specificity of the novel in the context of the philosophical currents of the era. Analysis of the problems raised by the writer in his work.

term paper, added 04/22/2011


A brief history of the creation and analysis of the ideological and artistic problems of the novel about the entrepreneur "Dombey and Son". Poetics of the title, elements of symbolism and realistic images of the novel. The image of Karker, the motives of a criminal offense and moral punishment.

Composition

The novel "The Name of the Rose" (1980) was the first and extremely successful attempt at the writer's pen, which has not lost its popularity to this day, and was highly appreciated by both picky literary critics and the general reader. When starting to analyze the novel, one should pay attention to its genre originality (in these and many other issues that relate to the poetics of the novel, the teacher should turn to an attempt at auto-interpretation called “A remark in the margins of the “Name of the Rose”, with which Eco accompanies his novel). The work is actually based on the story of the investigation of a number of mysterious murders that occurred in November 1327 in one of the Italian monasteries (six murders in seven days, along which the action unfolds in the novel). The task of investigating the murder is entrusted to the former inquisitor, philosopher and intellectual, the Franciscan monk William of Baskerville, who is accompanied by his young student Adson, who simultaneously acts in the work and as a narrator, through whose eyes the reader sees everything depicted in the novel.

Wilhelm and his student are conscientiously trying to unravel the criminal tangle declared in the work, and they almost succeed, but from the very first pages the author, not for a moment losing sight of the detective interest of the plot, subtly ironically sneers at his genre certainty.

The names of the main characters William of Baskerville and Adson (i.e. almost Watson) must inevitably evoke in the reader associations with Conan Doyle's detective couple, and for the sake of greater certainty, the author immediately demonstrates the non-overlapping deductive abilities of his hero Wilhelm (the scene of the reconstruction of circumstances, appearance, and even name of the disappeared horse at the beginning of the novel), reinforcing them both with sincere surprise and Adson's confusion (the situation accurately recreates the typical Doyle "moment of truth"). A lot of deductive habits Wilhelm certifies further, as the plot unfolds, in addition, he actively demonstrates his outstanding knowledge of various sciences, which again ironically points to the figure of Holmes. At the same time, Eco does not bring his irony to that critical limit, beyond which it develops into a parody, and his Wilhelm and Adson retain all the attributes of more or less qualified detectives until the end of the work.

The novel really has signs of not only a detective, but also a historical and philosophical work, since it rather scrupulously recreates the historical atmosphere of the era and poses a number of serious philosophical questions to the reader. Genre "uncertainty" largely motivates the unusual title of the novel. Eco wanted to remove such certainty from the title of his work, which is why he came up with the title “The Name of the Rose”, which in terms of meaning is completely neutral, more precisely, uncertain, because, according to the author, the number of symbols associated with the image of a rose is inexhaustible, and therefore unique .

Already the genre uncertainty of the novel can serve, in the thought of Eco himself, as a sign of the postmodernist orientation of his work. Eco motivates his arguments with his own (also presented in Marginal Notes) concept of postmodernism, which he contrasts with modernism. If the latter avoided action-packed plots (this is a sign of adventurous, i.e. “frivolous” literature), abused descriptions, fragmented composition, and often the elementary requirements of the logic and semantic connectedness of the depicted, then postmodernism, according to Eco, outgrows this openly declared principle of destruction (destruction) of the norms of classical poetics and the guidelines of new poetics are looking for in attempts to combine the traditional, which comes from the classics, and the anti-traditional, introduced into literature by modernism. Postmodernism does not seek to lock itself within the limits of elite tastes, but strives for a mass (in the best sense) reader, does not repel, but, on the contrary, conquers it. Hence, in the novel, there are elements of entertainment and detective story, but this is not ordinary entertainment: speaking about the differences between the detective model of his own work, Eco insisted that he was not interested in his own “criminal” basis, but in the very plot type of works that model the process of learning the truth. In this understanding

Eco argues that the metaphysical and philosophical type of plot is a detective plot. Modernism, according to Eco, discards what has already been said (i.e., the literary tradition), while postmodernism enters into a complex game with it, ironically rethinking it (hence, in particular, allusions to Conan Doyle, Borges with his image of the Library of Light and his own persona, ironically beaten in the image of Jorge, etc.). The unconventionality of the poetics of the novel is emphasized by Eco himself in the title of those works of his predecessors, which he singles out as associative sources of his inspiration (Joyce, T. Mann, critically rethought works of theorists of modernism - R. Bart, L. Fiedler, etc.). We also find modernistic features of the work in the way of presentation, which is realized in the plot in the form of a kind of game of variability of points of view: the author does not present everything depicted in the work directly, but as a translation and interpretation of the manuscript of a medieval monk “found” by him. The events are directly described by Adson when he reached old age, but in the form of their perception through the eyes of a young and naive disciple of William of Baskerville, who at the time of those events was Adson.

Who represents these points of view in the novel and how does he argue them? One of them is the overseer of the library funds Jorge, who believes that the truth was given to a person to feel immediately with the first biblical texts and their interpretations, and that it is impossible to deepen it, and any attempt to do this leads either to the profanation of Holy Scripture, or puts knowledge in the hands those who use it to the detriment of the truth. For this reason, Jorge selectively gives the monks books to read, deciding at his own discretion what is harmful and what is not. On the contrary, Wilhelm believes that the main purpose of the library is not to preserve (actually hiding) books, but to orient the reader through them to a further, in-depth search for truth, since the process of cognition, as he believes, is endless.

Separately, one should turn to the analysis of one of the key images of the novel - the image of the library of the labyrinth, which, obviously, symbolizes the complexity of cognition and at the same time correlates Eco's novel with similar images of libraries of labyrinths in Borges ("The Garden of Forking Paths", "The Babylonian Library"), and through it with a comparison of a library, a book, with life, which is quite common among modernists (the world is a book created by God, which practically implements the patterns of our existence encoded in another book - the Bible).