Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose

Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose is set in a Benedictine abbey in Northern Italy in the fourteenth century. This was a time of turmoil, and all over Europe the Church is persecuting members of the Fraticelli, followers of a lapsed Franciscan monk. He was burned at the stake some twenty years before. He had advocated total poverty, a move that is feared because it might undermine the authority of the Church. The Emperor is supporting the Fraticelli precisely in order to undermine the power of the Church.

This is the background. The story is told by Adso, a young acolyte at the monastery. He is to assist the newly arrived Guglielmo da Baskerville, sent to act as mediator between the forces of tolerance and the Pope's inquisitor, who is stopping at the abbey on his way South. The abbey is in turmoil because of the death of a monk, and the monk was murdered. Baskerville is asked to take over the investigation--as an outsider, he will have a fresh eye, and he also has a reputation for being able to solve puzzles of this sort. The other notables have not yet arrived, and he is to solve this crime before they do. More monks are murdered before he can accomplish this task.

The murders seem to be following a pattern based on the Book of Revelations. The library of the monastery is central to the case--the monks there copy manuscripts with painstaking detail, and it is soon apparent that there are secret books in the library that someone would kill to protect,

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r that there were forces endangering control and that the imposition of fear on the populace was essential to maintaining control. The book is structured around play and games, and this is in itself an ironic comment on the time, for games are the essence of play and laughter and involve individual attempts to understand matters rather than to accept the doctrine as set forth by the Church. Church doctrine extended far beyond religious matters as we would define them today. The church controlled every aspect of life in some degree and claimed to have all knowledge. Some of that knowledge was forbidden, while other aspects of that knowledge were to be offered as the truth and to be followed by all believers. The forbidden knowledge is at the core of the mystery in The Name of the Rose, and the forbidden knowledge is the knowledge of laughter. The murders that take place and all the intrigue and fear generated in the novel come about so that this forbidden knowledge, as embodied in Aristotle's second book of poetics, the book discussing comedy and laughter, can be kept secret. Those who seek to keep this secret do so out of fear--they fear what will happen if laughter is allowed to be loosed freely upon the world. Knowledg

Category: Literature - U