The Name of the Rose
Second Day: Terce (pp. 121-141)



Click here to return to study page index.
Click here to return to the ENG 510 syllabus.
Address questions or comments to Professor Anderson.



Topics:

Debate on the appropriateness of laughter: The most important source for the debate between William and Jorge on the legitimacy of laughter is Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper, 1953), pp. 417-35, "Jest and Earnest in Mediaeval Literature." This chapter is also a source for Eco's use of "kitchen humor" elsewhere in The Name of the Rose.

"A certain Lucian...the story of a man turned into an ass"  [Roger Raber comments]--  (p. 128): The text being referred to is Lucian's Lucius or The Ass.   Adso relates this text to a "similar fable" by Apuleius known as The Golden Ass.  The latter text concerns itself with the transformation of man to beast due to his excessive pride and sexual appetite.  After being complemented on his handsome appearance, Lucius and Fotis consummate, with "Bacchic fury", their desires (66).  Pride and lust are sins for which Lucius pays dearly, but it is not until Lucius confesses that "She [Fotis] tempted me to make love to her as though she were a boy" that the connection to The Name of the Rose is understood (67).   This admission links Lucius' excesses to the implied relationship between Adelmo and Berengar, the latter considered a sodomite.  Eco uses Apuleius' work to mirror the man/beast transformation within the abbey walls.  The pollution of the Franciscan order through excessive greed and lust is substantiated by Jorge's admission that "the library is testimony to truth and to error" (129).

"I wonder...why you are so opposed to the idea that Jesus may have laughed" (pp. 130-31): [Rebecca Papakonstanti comments] William and Jorge reveal two opposing opinions on the concept of laughter. Jorge believes that it is morally unacceptable to laugh, and he believes that Christ did not laugh. He says, "truth and good are not to be laughed at. This is why Christ did not laugh. Laughter ferments doubt" (132). He sees evil as a sign of weakness, and that "laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to combat it" (131). But, according to the Bible, "the Lord laughs at wicked men because he knows they will soon be destroyed" (Psalms 37:13) and he "mock[s] all the heathen" (Psalms 59:8). Christ laughed at evil; He used laughter as a sign of judgement. William, on the other hand, believes that laughter is a natural human response. He says, "laughter is proper to man, it is a sign of his rationality" (131). In the book of Psalms, people are portrayed laughing as a result of happiness: "When the Lord brought us back to Jerusalem, it was like a dream!

"Quintilian...says that laughter is to be repressed in the panegyric..." (p. 131): [Holly Spuckler comments] William observes that Quintilian allows laughter in cases other than panegyric, but does not explain what these "other cases" are. According to Quintilian's Institutes of Eloquence, the rhetorical value of humor should be valued, for it is a means of "dissipating melancholy impressions, of unbending the mind from too intense application, of renewing its powers and recruiting its strength, after being surfeited and fatigued" (vol. vi, p.3. trans. Guthrie). William, a Fransciscan, supports this, yet Quintillian also says that "all ridicule has something in it that is buffoonish, that is, something that is low", and "it is never attended with dignity".