The Name of the Rose
Suggestions for Research Paper Topics


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There are several books and articles that are devoted to the criticism of The Name of the Rose, including one by Eco himself, Postscript to The Name of the Rose. All these books and articles are helpful in many ways, and it is probably fair to say that they have already discussed some of the more obvious research topics exhaustively. Students probably will want to stay away from topics that have already been "done" thoroughly, such as "The Name of the Rose as a Detective Novel," or "Medieval and Modern Theories of Signification and The Name of the Rose," or "Sherlock Holmes as the Prototype for William of Baskerville." Still, despite all the critical discussions about The Name of the Rose, a surprisingly large number of major topics are left uncovered, or only touched on in the published criticism. There is plenty of opportunity for original critical work. The following are a few suggestions:

Abbot Abo as a composite character: One dimension of Abbot Abo's character is the portrait of the ideal abbot as set forth in the Benedictine Rule, which Abo tries to emulate, but perhaps does so only superficially. Another source for Abo's character is the historical personality of Suger, the Abbot of the abbey church of St.-Denis, a builder and decorator of great churches in the Ile de France. The most important study is Erwin Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and its Art Treasures (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946. The most important medieval text is Suger's De rebus administratione sua gestis, Patrologia Latina 186:1211-39. Suger is best understood in contrast with St. Bernard of Clairvaus, who was vocal in his disapproval of church ornamentation because of the vanity and unnecessary expense that it represented.

Alanus de Insulus (Alan de Lille, ca. 1128-1202) as a source in The Name of the Rose: William of Baskerville is represented several times as referring to Alanus to Insulus, the author of two works that also influenced Chaucer and the 13th-century French Roman de la rose: (2) the Complaint of Nature, which was the most explicit diatribe against "sodomy" in medieval culture, and (2) Anticlaudianus, which was a miniature "summa" of the seven liberal arts, a sort of encyclopedia of learning. Besides these major themes, there are some minor ones also drawn from Alanus: the theme of the topsy-turvy world is from the Complaint of Nature; the theme of the "book of God's Word" and the "book of God's world" (p. 23 and elsewhere) is from Anticlaudianus. These are medieval commonplaces (Eco could have got them from Curtius' Latin Literature of the Middle Ages), but Alanus was the dissemination point for them, even thought they were not original with him. William's apparent admiration for Alanus presents an enigma, for while William has a "modern" sensibility like Roger Bacon and William of Occam, Alanus is a conservative intellectual force, rather like Jorge of Borges or Malachi. William's ability to accommodate Neo-Platonic learning into his essentially Aristotelian outlook is a complex problem, some dimensions of which could be explored through an explication of Eco's use of Alanus as a source.

Aristotle and Aristotelianism in The Name of the Rose: The works of Aristotle gradually became available in western European universities and monasteries during the 12th century, mostly by way of translation of Arabic translations of Greek texts; the Arabic texts, in turn, were translated into Latin. During the 13th century, Aristotle's writings were very controversial; the University of Paris, in 1215 and in subsequent years, published prohibitions that banned public lectures on Aristotle, although private reading of Aristotle's works by scholars was allowed. The tension between progressive and conservative forces in The Name of the Rose, therefore, had its antecedent in the institutional resistence to Aristotelian ideas during the preceding century. Jorge of Borges' attempt to suppress Aristotelian texts reflects this conservative view. Aristotelianism in the 12th through the 14th centuries, as a chapter in intellectual history, could be explored specifically in relation to The Name of the Rose.

Apocalypticism in The Name of the Rose: One of the generic "identities" of The Name of the Rose is its role as an "apocalpyse," with particular reference to the Book of Revelations, to 10th-century apocalypticism, and to the 13th-century apocalyptic theories, Joachim of Fiore. Eco presents a medieval form of apocalypticism, but as he does so, he is aware of its relationship to postmodern apocalypticism, which he was written about elsewhere.

Benedictine Rule as a Source for The Name of the Rose: The Rule of St. Benedict influences not only the liturgical hours and many of the routine activities of the monastery, but also has an influence on particular characters, such as Abbot Abo, the cellerar, and Malachi the librarian.

Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy as a Source for The Name of the Rose: Boethius is alluded to or quoted from several times in the novel. His Consolation of Philosophy, which presents a form of Platonism, represents the conservative intellectual position of Jorge of Borges and others who resist and oppose the new Aristotelian learning.

Close reading of a selected episode in The Name of the Rose. Here are some examples:

--William's and Adso's visit with the glazier Nicholas (pp. 84-92), and the concept-metaphor "knowing is seeing."

--The discovery of Vanantius' body in a vat of pig's blood (pp. 101-9): metaphors (e.g. snow is parchment) and intertextualities ("Arthur Conan Doyle's "Bascombe Valley Mystery")

--Berengar's encounter with Adelmo's ghost in the cemetery (pp. 114-17)

--The three debates between William and Jorge on the licitness of laughter

William and Adso's attempt to solve the problem of gaining entrance tot he Finis Africae (pp. 160-68); its intertextualities (Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold Bug" and Arthur Conan Doyle's "Adventure of the Dancing Men").

Encyclopedism in The Name of the Rose: Traditionally, "encyclopedism" is associated with epic, but Eco's characters often allude to Scholastic encyclopedic writers such as Alanus de Insulis (Anticlaudianus is a sort of "summa" or encyclopedia of the seven liberal arts, for instance). Some of the episodes in The Name of the Rose present, in metonymized form, examples of important encyclopedia genres, such as the herbal, the lapidary, the bestiary. An interesting cultural perspective on the "summa" as a genre is developed in Robert Southern's The Making of the Middle Ages. Any researcher attemptin this topic should be aware that for Eco in his semantic writings, "encyclopedia" and "dictionary" are technical terms that play an important role in his theory of semantics: see Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 46-86 (chapter 2: "Dictionary vs. Encyclopedia; the reader should also read chapter 1, on signs, before moving on the chapter 2). P 99 .29 1984.

Game Theory and The Name of the Rose: Eco thinks of a novel as a "game" played between an author and a reader. The detective story, as a literary genre, probably influenced his thinking about this, since a good detective story lends itself to analysis as a game in which the author provides clues that should enable an ideal reader to solve a mystery before the solution is revealed at the end. Eco almost certainly is influenced by Jorge Luis Borges in this regard. But Eco's game-playing goes beyond this: he plants clues that relate to meaning, and it is up to the reader to create valid interpretations based on these clues--without wandering off into invalid interpretations. An author working on this topic would need to explore "game theory" in general, beginning with Johann Huizinga's Homo Ludens.

Genre Theory: Several literary genres overlap in The Name of the Rose: historical novel, detective story, Gothic romance, postmodern apocalypse, encyclopedia. Then, in addition, there are "constituent genres," such as the biblical exigesis, the debate, the mystical-alegorical lyric. The coexistence of these genres in a single work can be related to genre theory and to postmodern fiction.

Heresy in The Name of the Rose: This is a complex topic. It may not even be possible to identify all the heresies that are alluded to in the novel. Some of them are related to apocalypticism, others to the Franciscan ideal of poverty, still others between the schism in the Church that resulted in the establishment of rival popes in Rome and in Avignon. Some general critical questions to consider might be the status of a heresy, in neo-historical terms, as a "non-canonical" or "marginal" construct, and the medieval belief that heretics were forerunners of the Antichrist and thus were signs of the coming Apocalypse. The role of Bernardo Gui, to identify and destroy heretics, can be seen in both a "medieval" light (reflecting fear of the Apocalypse) and in a "postmodern" light (orthodoxy and heresy in a power- relations dynamic).

Historical Novel: The Name of the Rose is, among other things, a historical novel; important influences on Eco include Sir Walter Scott's Waverley novels, and Alessandro Manzoni's The Bethrothed. The characteristics of these and other 19th and early 20th-century historical novels are set forth well by George Lukacs, the Marxist critic. In Marxist criticism, the historical novel has been foregrounded as the genre that serves best as a barometer of the role of literature as a reflection of social history. But-- is there such a thing as a "postmodern historical novel" that would have a very different identity compared to the profile presented by Lukacs? Can we entertain the idea that The Name of the Rose differs from the Waverley novels and from I promessi spossi by being "postmodern"? It is also interesting to note the very different, "absurdist" approach taken to the historical novel by Italo Calvino in A Baron in the Trees, which certainly influenced Eco, even though he does not imitate anything in it directly. (The setting in the north of Italy, for instance, is a common thread in Alessandro Manzoni's, Italo Calvino's, and Umberto Eco's historical novels.)

Intertextuality as a theme in The Name of the Rose: "Intertextuality" is obviously part of the artistic compositon of The Name of the Rose: it is a book that is composed from parts of other books, and Eco often leaves clues that enable us to find his sources--consistent with his idea that a novel is a game that the author plays with the reader. But, apart from this, "intertextuality" is also a theme in The Name of the Rose. Adso at one point realizes that books mainly discourse about other books. William has reconstructed Aristotle's theory of comedy from other books, in the absence of Book II of Aristotle's Poetics. Salvatore may seem to be a sort of comic mock-allegory of intertextuality. Here and elsewhere in the novel, Eco explores intertextuality as a theme.

Lacanian symbolic reading of The Name of the Rose: There is a fairly good basis for attempting a symbolic reading of The Name of the Rose in the manner of Jacques Lacan. Lacan's "Seminar on `The Purloined Letter' is his most influential and exemplary work, and, as one of Eco's sources, it is part of the "intertextuality" of The Name of the Rose, along with Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia." The purloined letter in Poe's story, and the concealed photograph in "A Scandal in Bohemia," are narrative counterparts of the Greek manuscript of Aristotle's Poetics Book II. In Lacanian terms, the purloined letter is a "signifier of poeticity" within Poe's text. If this is the case, it would be interesting to attempt an interpretation of The Name of the Rose on analogy to Lacan's interpretation of "The Purloined Letter." The contents of the purloined letter are unknown, demanding a nonreferential, or semiotic, interpretation. The contents of the photograph in "A Scandal in Bohemia" are known, and invite referentiality. The contents of the Greek manuscript are knowable only through intertextuality; that is to say, Aristotle's theory of comedy can only be partially reconstructed from references to it in other texts. So we have in Eco an allegory of failed reference. Against our will, we are left with semiotic (rather than reference) as our only way of constructing "meaning." The Greek manuscript, then, is the "signifier" of whatever it was that we were looking for and had wanted to call the "meaning" of The Name of the Rose.



Libraries and librarians in medieval culture and in The Name of the Rose: Although the Benedictine Rule does not address the topic of libraries, the preparation, collection, and conservation of books became a central theme of Benedictine monastic culture as early as the 6th century, under the influence of Cassiodorus. Eco's representation of the library in the Aedificium, and of Malachi the librarian, have both medieval and postmodern characteristics that converge in interesting ways.

Liturgy in The Name of the Rose: Possible topics include the role of Advent and its relation to the apocalyptic theme in The Name of the Rose, the history, text and role of particularly important liturgical texts such as the Sederunt and the Dies irae, and of liturgical authors such as Fortunatus Venantus.

Medievalism in The Name of the Rose: Eco, elsewhere in his writing, makes a distinction between 19th-century forms of medievalism and "postmodern medievalism." The Name of the Rose lends itself to analysis as a work in "postmodern medievalism."

Modernism in The Name of the Rose: Umberto Eco self-identifies as a "postmodern author": in his critical work he often writes about "postmodern medievalism" and "postmodern millenialism." In The Name of the Rose, William of Baskerville is a protomodern thinker, an allegory of modernism emergine out of the earlier matrix of medieval culture. He is comparable to Roger Bacon and William of Occam, English scholastic philosophers who (in Eco's view) were precursors of British empiricism. The Name of the Rose, then, could be explored as a work by a postmodern author, allegorizing the emergence of the "modern" during the Middle Ages. A starting point for understanding modernism and postmodernism would be Ray Linn, A Teacher's Introduction to Postmodernism (Urbana, IL: National Council for Teachers of English, 1996).

Nonsense in The Name of the Rose: The novel presents two clearcut examples of nonsense: Salvatore's language (pp. 45-47), and Adso's dream after he had fallen asleep during the Dies irae (pp. 427-35). The first of these, conversation with Salvatore, is reminiscent of the "clown" scenes in Shakespeare's tragedies and history plays, where the discourse becomes self-reflexive and leads nowhere. The second of these, Adso's dream, reminds us of the Gargantuan humor of Rabelais, based upon absurdist action. Then, in addition, there may be some question as to whether Adelmo of Otranto's marginal images of animal hybrids and monsters are nonsense. Jorge thinks they are diabolical nonsense, allegorizing Adelmo's sodomy. Abbot Abo thinks that monsters really exist and that Adelmo's work glorified the power of God. In between these extremes, William does not believe in the existence of monsters, but he does think that Adelmo's monsters were a pious application of artistry on Adelmo's part. It would be useful to relate Eco's use of nonsense to contemporary theories of nonsense, such as the one presented in Susan Stewart, Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.

Reader Response Theory and The Name of the Rose: Eco is one of the major authors in the field of "reader response theory," but his European approach to this form of criticism is quite different from American approaches to it. Particularly important, for Eco, are his concepts of a "Model Reader" and a "Model Author," which are to be contrasted with "empirical readers" and "empirical authors." How does all this relate to The Name of the Rose? What are the characteristics of the Model Reader and the Model Author of The Name of the Rose?

Reception history of The Name of the Rose: Aspects of the reception-history of this novel include some very mixed criticial reviews when it first appeared in English, contrasted with widespread popularity among readers, enormous sales, the making of a movie starring Sean Connory as William of Baskerville, and repeated examples of Eco discussing the novel (along with more general aspects of criticism, especially intentionality and reader-response theory) and thereby influencing its reception history. Another complicating factor that makes reception history interesting is Eco's status as a professor at the University of Bologna and a major semanticist. The most difficult aspect of this project would be the task of tracking down as many as possible of the several hundred reviews of the book, the movie, and of some follow-up books by Eco where he comments on The Name of the Rose, viz. his Postscript to The Name of the Rose, Interpretation and Overinterpretation, and Six Walks in the Fictional Woods. A useful starting point would be Roger Rollin, "The Name of the Rose as Popular Culture," in M. Thomas Inge, ed., Naming the Rose: Essays on Eco's The Name of the Rose (Jackson: University Pres of Mississippi, 1988), pp. 157-72.

Signs and Signification in The Name of the Rose: Signs constitute a recurring theme in The Name of the Rose, as they do in Calvino's The Nonexistent Knight and in Invisible Cities. Eco presents this theme explicitly at several points, especially in earlier chapters, for instance in the Brunellus episode. Adso's and William's characters might be differentiated partly on the basis of their attitude toward signs: Adso has an Augustinian confidence in signs and in the validity of signification, whereas William harbors a distrust in the senses, and in signs, that was characteristic of the Skeptics. The theme of signs in The Name of the Rose can be contextualized by relating it to the classical debate between the sophists and the Skeptics and also by relating it to Eco's own books about semantics.

Sodomy in The Name of the Rose: Sodomy is mentioned explicitly only two or three times in the novel, but it occupies a central role in the murder mystery. Or, rather, it seems to be central, but, in the end, turns out to be incidental. The interesting critical problem would be just this: The Name of the Rose is both a medievalist historical novel, and a postmodern detective story. Does Eco succeed in presenting Sodomy in both medieval and postmodern perspectives? The critic researching this problem will need to reconstruct medieval attitudes toward homosexuality, and also the postmodern perspective likely to be shared by Eco, influenced by Michel Foucault's neo-historical theory that sexualities are social constructs motivated by power-relation dynamics.

Time in The Name of the Rose: Eco's combination of seasonal and liturgical time impacts his development of the themes of apocalypticism and postmodern medievalism.

Tower of Babel in medieval culture and in The Name of the Rose: The story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9 had two major roles in medieval biblical exegesis and culture. First, the Tower of Babel was a symbol of pride, and so was Nimrod, its supposed builder according to medieval tradition, although not in the biblical account. Second, the story of the "confusion of tongues," taken together with the story of Adam's naming the animals in Genesis 2:19-20, constituted the basis for medieval speculation about an original, ideal or "perfect" language of Adam, and the diversity of (imperfect) languages in later times. Eco has written a book about Renaissance speculations based on these themes: his Quest for the Perfect Language. A source contemporaneous with the fictive time of The Name of the Rose is Dante's De Vulgare eloquentia (begun ca. 1304-06 but never completed). There, in Book I, chapters 4-8, Dante incorporates the myths of the Adamic language and the confusion of tongues at Babel into his thinking about the potential eloquence of "popular" dialects, like Italian, as an alternative to Latin.

William of Baskerville's Composite Character: One of the sources for William of Baskerville, as everyone recognizes, is Sherlock Holmes. But there are other courses. William of Ockham is the most obvious: a Franciscan thinker and precursor of scientific thinking. Eco may have had other "premodern" medieval personalities in mind as well: Roger Bacon, probably; Albertus Magnus, almost certainly. More generally, he was thinking of the English scholastics of the 12th through the 14th centuries (Adelard of Bath and Alfred of Sareshel, as well as Roger Bacon and William of Okham), who played a critical role in introducing Aristotelianism to Western Europe, either through translation of Aristotle's works from Arabic into Latin, or through their own commentaries on Aristotle. The composite nature of William of Baskerville's character is in keeping with The Name of the Rose as a book created from the parts of other books.

William of Baskerville as a Scholastic Philosopher: William has been written about as a detective whose prototypes include Poe's Dupin and Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, but except for his admiration for Roger Bacon, his role as a philosopher has been irgnored in published criticism. One can imagine William as the Scholastic philosopher who Eco would have wanted to be, had he lived in the early 14th century instead of the late 20th. Some aspects of his Scholasticism can be "recovered" from the text. He is a Skeptic, distrustful of the senses, but also a proto-empiricist, believing that observation of nature is the basis of science. He is a nominalist, like William of Occam, distrustful of universals. He seems to have some idea of the relative importance of various sciences that is at odds with the traditional "seven liberal arts": like Roger Bacon, he regards optics as the key to advancement in knowledge. He does not dispute the claims of millenialism, but he believes that the best way to prepare a defense against the Antichrist is to preserve and study books and to obtain new knowledge through the sciences. He also seems to have some idea of the relative ranking of ancient and modern philosophers: Aristotle is the first of the ancients, and Roger Bacon is the first of the moderns, with William of Occam a close second. These are some aspects of William's version of Scholasticism only just offhand: a close reading of The Name of the Rose with this problem in mind would uncover a lot more, and each of these items implies a rich cultural and intellectual tradition in and of itself.