Abstract
Eco’s first novel is considered in relation to the social tensions that arose in the aftermath of the Italian economic miracle and the assassination of the statesman Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades which motivated his attempt to explore through fiction the confrontation of the intellectual with the labyrinth of interpretative obscurity. Eco’s appeal to an Italian popular readership is explored through the historical whodunit’s accessibility and his provocative strategy on the model of the anti-detective novel of Leonardo Sciascia as well as the intention to “irritate the reader” in his second novel Foucault’s Pendulum. Eco’s third novel The Island of the Day Before is considered as a Baroque anti-Romance novel, and a brief overview is offered of the narrative focus of his other four novels from the perspective of his concept of interrelational formativity.
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Notes
- 1.
Bondanella, Peter, Umberto Eco and the Open Text, p. 125.
- 2.
Eco, “On Some Functions of Literature,” from On Literature, translated by Martin McLaughlin (Orlando, Harcourt, Inc., 2004), p. 1.
- 3.
Ginsborg, Paul, A History of Contemporary Italy, (London: Penguin Books, 1990), p. 220.
- 4.
Sassoon, Donald, Contemporary Italy Economy, Society, and Politics since 1945, (London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1997), p. 262.
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Clark, Martin, Modern Italy, 1871–1982, (London: Longman Publishing Group, 1985), p. 362
- 6.
p. 10.
- 7.
Writers and Society in Contemporary Italy, p. 10.
- 8.
Eco, “Postscript” to The Name of the Rose, p. 509.
- 9.
The English translation was published in Eco’s Travels in Hyperreality, pp. 113–118.
- 10.
Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, p. 175.
- 11.
Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, p. 123.
- 12.
Lilli, Laura, Voci Dall’Alfabeto, Interviste con Sciascia, Moravia, Eco nei decenni Settanta e Ottanta, (Roma: Edizioni minimum fax, 1995), Voices of the Alphabet, Interviews with Sciascia, Moravia, Eco in the Seventies and Eighties, p. 85. Translation is my own.
- 13.
Lilli, Laura, Voci Dall’Alfabeto, pp. 84–85.
- 14.
Eco, “How and Why I Write,” from Bouchard, Norma and Pravadelli, Veronica Umberto Eco’s Alternative, The Politics of Culture and the Ambiguities of Interpretation, (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1998) p. 281.
- 15.
Eco, “How and Why I Write,” from Umberto Eco’s Alternative, p. 283.
- 16.
Eco, “How and Why I Write,” from Umberto Eco’s Alternative, p. 284.
- 17.
Eco, “Postscript” to The Name of the Rose, p. 525.
- 18.
Eco, Confessions of a Young Novelist, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), p. 6.
- 19.
Eco, “Postscript” to The Name of the Rose, pp. 525–526.
- 20.
From the introduction by Lino Pertile to The New Italian Novel, edited by Zygmunt Baraski and Lino Pertile, p. 1.
- 21.
Caesar, Michael and Hainsworth, Peter, Writers and Society in Contemporary Italy, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), p. 16.
- 22.
Colleen Barry, “Umberto Eco, author of ‘The Name of the Rose,’ dead at 84,” Associated Press, February, 20, 2016.
- 23.
Caesar, Michael and Hainsworth, Peter, Writers and Society in Contemporary Italy, pp. 16–19.
- 24.
Eco, “Postscript” to The Name of the Rose, p. 518.
- 25.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 130.
- 26.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 131.
- 27.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 132.
- 28.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 468.
- 29.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 474.
- 30.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 478.
- 31.
Eco, A Theory of Semiotics, p. 64.
- 32.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 49.
- 33.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 131.
- 34.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 200.
- 35.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 152.
- 36.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 188.
- 37.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 41.
- 38.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 61.
- 39.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 205.
- 40.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, pp. 491–492.
- 41.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, pp. 524–526.
- 42.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 535.
- 43.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 526.
- 44.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 159.
- 45.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 94.
- 46.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 470.
- 47.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 465.
- 48.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 470.
- 49.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, pp. 480–481.
- 50.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, pp. 469–470.
- 51.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 314.
- 52.
Deborah Parker and Carolyn Veldstra, The John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Second Edition, 2005).
- 53.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 526.
- 54.
JoAnn Cannon, Postmodern Italian Fiction, p. 9.
- 55.
Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, p. 81.
- 56.
Farrell, Joseph, Leonardo Sciascia, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995)p. 61.
- 57.
Farrell, Joseph, Leonardo Sciascia, p. 65.
- 58.
Sciascia, Leonardo, The Moro Affair, (New York: Carcanet Press Limited, 1987).
- 59.
Sciascia, The Moro Affair, p. 17.
- 60.
Cannon, JoAnn, Postmodern Italian Fiction, the Crisis of Reason in Calvino, Eco, Sciascia, Malerba, (Rutherford: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1989), p. 27.
- 61.
From the introduction to the English language version of The Betrothed by the translator Bruce Penman, (Middlesex, England: Penguin Classics, 1972), p. 11.
- 62.
Eco, “Postscript” to The Name of the Rose, p. 524.
- 63.
Manzoni, Alessandro, The Betrothed, p. 61.
- 64.
Manzoni, Alessandro, The Betrothed, p. 114.
- 65.
Eco, The Name of the Rose p. 139.
- 66.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 322. The translation of the Latin is from The Key to “The Name of the Rose,” p. 155.
- 67.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, 491.
- 68.
Eco Foucault’s Pendulum, pp. 280–281.
- 69.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 300.
- 70.
Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 29.
- 71.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 174.
- 72.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 139.
- 73.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 282.
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Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 312.
- 75.
Eco Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 314.
- 76.
Lila Azam Zanganeh, “Umberto Eco: The Art of Fiction, No. 197,” The Paris Review, Summer 2008, No. 185.
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- 78.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, pp. 93–94.
- 79.
Lila Azam Zanganeh, “Umberto Eco: The Art of Fiction, No. 197,” The Paris Review, Summer 2008, No. 185.
- 80.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 93.
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Lila Azam Zanganeh, “Umberto Eco: The Art of Fiction, No. 197,” The Paris Review, Summer 2008, No. 185.
- 82.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 270.
- 83.
Lila Azam Zanganeh, “Umberto Eco: The Art of Fiction, No. 197,” The Paris Review, Summer 2008, No. 185.
- 84.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 520.
- 85.
Eco, “Ur-Fascism,” from Five Moral Pieces, p. 66.
- 86.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 175.
- 87.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 177.
- 88.
Eco, “Whose Side Are the Orixa On?,” from Travels in Hyperreality, p. 108.
- 89.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 179.
- 90.
Eco, “Whose Side Are the Orixa On?,” from Travels in Hyperreality, p. 109.
- 91.
Eco, “Why Are They Laughing In Those Cages?,” from Travels in Hyperreality, pp. 122–123.
- 92.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 495.
- 93.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 217.
- 94.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 525.
- 95.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 152.
- 96.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 341.
- 97.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 346.
- 98.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 502.
- 99.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 344.
- 100.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 431.
- 101.
Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Volume 33, p. 124, as cited from Time Magazine, March 6, 1989.
- 102.
Eco, “Postscript” to The Name of the Rose, p. 529.
- 103.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, pp. 132–133.
- 104.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 192.
- 105.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 228.
- 106.
Hutcheon, Linda, “Irony-clad Foucault,” from On Eco, An Anthology, edited by Capozzi, Rocco (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).
- 107.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 438.
- 108.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 533.
- 109.
Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 491.
- 110.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 24.
- 111.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, pp. 36–37.
- 112.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 54.
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Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 65.
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Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 299.
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Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 436.
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Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 322.
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Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 312.
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Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 294.
- 120.
Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, p. 362.
- 121.
Mel Gussow, “A Word-Bending Wit’s Riff on the Unreachable,” New York Times, November 28, 1995.
- 122.
Eco, The Island of the Day Before, (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), p. 106.
- 123.
Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 367.
- 124.
Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 462.
- 125.
Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 21.
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Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 79.
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Eco, The Island of the Day Before, pp. 118–119.
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Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 137.
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Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 244.
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Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 260.
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Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 267.
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Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 280.
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Eco, The Open Work, p. 7.
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Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 139
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Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 146.
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Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 463.
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- 149.
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- 150.
Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 119.
- 151.
Eco, The Island of the Day Before, p. 354.
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Merrell, D. (2017). The Literary Provocateur. In: Umberto Eco, The Da Vinci Code, and the Intellectual in the Age of Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54789-3_10
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