Naming the Rose: Eco, Medieval Signs, and Modern Theory

“A textile of other texts, a ‘whodunit’ of quotations, a book built of books.” So Umberto Eco has described his phenomenally successful novel The Name of the Rose, Theresa Coletti, a medievalist with a special interest in modern critical theory, asserts that Eco, by means of a concrete rendering of medieval social and intellectual life, has made a significant contemporary statement about language, meaning responsible intellectual activity, and the nature of critical discourse. Naming the Rose explores the implications of the unusual status of Eco’s novel- at once a highly sophisticated novel of ideas and a best-selling work of detective fiction- perceiving in its problematic reception and hybrid nature reflection of the cultural and theoretical issues with which Eco is concerned.