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Umberto Eco between ! The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0014585815595350

narrative: Il nome della foi.sagepub.com

rosa, Il pendolo di
Foucault, and La
misteriosa fiamma della
regina Loana
Erik Schilling
Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany;
Jesus College, University of Oxford, UK

Abstract
In this article, Umberto Eco’s novels will be analyzed as postmodern and neo-realist
narration. From Il nome della rosa onwards, Eco does not only deal with questions of
(literary) theory – such as semiotics, interpretation, and deconstruction – but also with
ontological issues. Although striking examples of ‘theory-aware’ texts, Il nome della rosa
and Il pendolo di Foucault consider the idea of a non-arbitrary perspective on the world.
Putting further emphasis on this, La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana stands in contrast
to a postmodern play with theory and history. It can be described as a historical novel that
highlights chances and limits of historiography. At the same time, it illustrates a return of
narrative that goes hand in hand with a re-installation of author and narrator, the literary
instances that had been put into question by Eco’s earlier novels.

Keywords
contemporary literature, historical novel, literary theory

After Umberto Eco had entered the literary scene with Il nome della rosa, there was
hardly a review of the novel that did not use the term ‘postmodern’ to describe Eco’s
way of narration.1 The various aspects that have been called postmodern will
not be revised in detail. Instead, I will focus on one of them, crucial also for
Il pendolo di Foucault and L’isola del giorno prima: the ‘theory-awareness’ of the
novels.2 Adso in Il nome della rosa is less a first-person-narrator who tells his

Corresponding author:
Erik Schilling, Institut für Deutsche Philologie, LMU München, Schellingstr. 3, 80799 München, Germany.
Email: erik.schilling@lmu.de

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individual story than a ‘writer’ (in terms of Barthes, 1994: 492) who combines inter-
textual fragments. Belbo, an author-character in Il pendolo di Foucault, is killed
during the plot – a very vivid way of illustrating Barthes’ idea of ‘the death of the
author’ (Barthes, 1994). L’isola del giorno prima is closely associated with the ‘tre tipi
di intenzioni’ (Eco, 1990: 22–25),3 the theoretical concepts of the author’s, reader’s
and text’s intentions that Eco introduces in I limiti dell’interpretazione.
In contrast, Eco’s later novels Baudolino, La misteriosa fiamma della regina
Loana and Il cimitero di Praga can be considered a return of narrative. This
goes hand in hand with a re-installation of author and narrator. Yambo, the
protagonist of La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana, has lost his memory
and tries to rebuild his identity in an existential approach to the problem of
remembering and forgetting. Whenever he does not remember, he starts construc-
ting a new identity. This is told as a process that not only refers to 20th century
history in Italy, but also – and especially – to autobiographical elements of the
author Eco. Thus, La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana is a historical narrative
that makes use of a micro-historical perspective to explore the possibilities and
limits of historiography in the 21st century.
How this is shaped in detail and to what extent the novel can be considered a
narrative that is different from Eco’s postmodernist attitude towards the past in his
earlier novels will be addressed in this article. My thesis is that in La misteriosa
fiamma della regina Loana Eco explores a new approach to theoretical and historio-
graphical concepts integrated into novels, an approach, however, that had already
popped up in certain passages of his earlier novels.

Semiotics and the death of the author in Il nome della rosa

Il nome della rosa transforms the historical novel into ‘metahistoriographic fiction’4
by critically reflecting established patterns of the genre. The manuscript fiction with
which the story opens seems to endow the text with an atmosphere of authenticity by
reconstructing its historical tradition – which, however, turns out to be fictitious.
Afterwards, the novel gives an example of the self-assured manner in which the
monk Adso places his life in the semiotic system of the universe. Here, the protago-
nist’s faith in God can be discerned, a faith that expresses itself in the knowledge of
truth. Even though at times it may be hidden, it can be uncovered in the end:

[L]a verità, prima che faccia a faccia, si manifesta a tratti (ahi, quanto illeggibili)
nell’errore del mondo, cosı̀ che dobbiamo compitarne i fedeli segnacoli, anche là
dove ci appaiono oscuri e quasi intessuti di una volontà del tutto intesa al male.
(Eco, 1980: 19)

Truth is uncovered by employing the teleological semiotic process Eco, drawing

upon the works of Peirce, devised in his theoretical writings (Eco, 1975, 1979,
1984). In doing so, a potentially infinite process of interpretation is started; in
practice, the process is terminated as soon as the recipient has sufficiently decoded

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Schilling 3

the sign for his understanding. The interpretation is performed through a

series of abductions in a process of semiosis. Interpretation and cultural
signification form a mutual relation: Interpretation requires a cultural frame
where meaning is generated through a process of communication (Fröhlich, 2009;
Schalk, 2000: 116–125).
After the events in the abbey, however, Adso distances himself from this notion.
The following lack of significance is reinforced by the epilogue of the novel where
historical tradition is put into question by poststructuralist techniques. Many years
after the events have taken place, Adso returns to the burnt-down library and col-
lects some of the remaining book pages. By putting them together he not only tells
the story of the abbey’s library, but also his personal story. In the end, he is no longer
sure which of the stories prevails. Every attempt at truth is lost:

Più rileggo questo elenco più mi convinco che esso è effetto del caso e non contiene alcun
messaggio. Ma queste pagine incomplete mi hanno accompagnato per tutta la vita che
da allora mi è rimasta da vivere, le ho spesso consultate come un oracolo, e ho quasi
l’impressione che quanto ho scritto su questi fogli, che tu ora leggerai, ignoto lettore,
altro non sia che un centone che non dice e non ripete altro che ciò che quei frammenti
mi hanno suggerito, né so più se io abbia sinora parlato di essi o essi abbiano parlato per
bocca mia. (Eco, 1980: 502–503)

Adso’s manuscript is revealed to be made of fragments and there is no individual

authorship. Signs refer to other signs, texts refer to other texts, but no final mean-
ing can be decoded. The total loss of orientation Adso experiences in the course of
both the narrative and his writing is symbolized in the scraps of parchment that he
recovers from the burnt-down library: in the end, he is no longer sure whether the
story has been constructed from his own memory or as a result of the recombin-
ation of intertextual fragments. Adso thus suffers from a loss of reality and falls
back on the arbitrary denotations, the nomina nuda. This illustrates the change
from author to ‘writer’ whose ‘seul pouvoir est de mêler les écritures, de les con-
trarier les unes par les autres, de façon à ne jamais prendre appui sur l’une d’elles’
(Barthes, 1994: 494). Just as the fragments form a pastiche for Adso, the novel
confronts the reader with a literary pastiche. The narrative structure of the chron-
icle turns out to be a rhizomatic labyrinth (in terms of Deleuze and Guattari, 1980:
9–37) without center or periphery. The multitude of scraps of discourse that is
presented in a consecutive fashion without any discernible structure or pattern
results in a suspension of meaning, allowing different readings. Eco therefore
incorporates a central concept of postmodern philosophy: ‘grand metanarratives’
as defined by Lyotard5 are no longer credible. Closely connected with this is the
phenomenon of plurality. Not only can the tradition of the text be described as
pluralistic, the narrative voice, too, operates in a multiperspective fashion. Unlike
in Il pendolo di Foucault, however, this process only takes place in the last couple of
pages, as a result of which the textual coherence of the novel is not challenged as a
whole.

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Limits of interpretation and the production of presence

in Il pendolo di Foucault
In Il nome della rosa the difference between a teleological semiosis and a loss of
signification was merely hinted at in the epilogue. In contrast to that, Il pendolo
di Foucault foregrounds this tension right from the beginning. The novel retraces
the history of the Knights Templar, Rosicrucianism, and other secret societies
from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The three protagonists rewrite
history, in which they succeed so well that their fictions are believed by multiple
other characters in the novel and in the end even by themselves. Hence, the
approach to texts that Il pendolo di Foucault presents constitutes a sketch of
the possibilities of interpretation.
In the novel, an important aspect of the cabbalistic and hermetic doctrines
consists in the conclusion that the signified must never be revealed, so as not to
rob it of the fascination of the secret: the ‘drift’ – la diffe´rance as defined by Derrida
(2013) – has to be an infinite one. What Eco states in his theoretical writings, for
example in I limiti dell’interpretazione,6 is illustrated in a fictional context: there is a
direct link between hermetic tradition and deconstruction, and the deconstructive
process exceeds the normal semiotic dispersion within the boundaries of competing
cultural codes. By demonstrating the destructive potential of a deconstructive
reading, the novel sets limits to interpretation. The protagonists devise a plan
that produces connections between their biography and history where they do
not exist. They create an ‘autobiographic historiography’ which is declared to be
true, so that the protagonists gain control over the ‘grand metanarrative’ of the
world.
This yearning for a structure is shown to be fatal already in the first chapter:
The protagonist understands the experiment demonstrating the earth’s rotation
by means of the Foucault Pendulum as an expression of divine will. The arbi-
trary center that the pendulum’s suspension point constitutes is seen as ‘il Punto
Fermo,’ ‘l’unico punto fisso dell’universo,’ where ‘il mistero dell’immobilità
assoluta’ (Eco, 1988: 10) takes place. With this – clearly ironic – mystification
of a banality, the text seems to advocate the renunciation of a center, similar
to what Derrida has repeatedly postulated in his writings. However, reading
Il pendolo di Foucault as a plea for deconstruction would not do the text justice,
even if the protagonists can be said to act in a ‘deconstructionist’ manner in
large parts of the novel. Limits of deconstruction – which are Limits of
Interpretation – are installed very subtly, only to bring them out all the more
drastically.
The following example of the relation between author, reader, and text may help
to clarify how limits of interpretation are established. The fact that Casaubon and
Belbo can be seen as model reader and model author, respectively, with Casaubon
reading Belbo’s computer files, shows that this relation is a constitutive element of
the text even on the level of diegesis. Moreover, in Casaubon’s imagination, the
model author falls prey to Roland Barthes’ proclaimed death of the author.

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Schilling 5

Belbo’s death by being tied to the pendulum is radically staged – and at the same time
ironized:

[I]l corpo di Belbo era divenuto immobile, e il filo con la sfera si muovevano a pendolo
soltanto dal suo corpo verso terra, il resto – che collegava Belbo con la volta –
rimanendo ormai a piombo. Cosı̀ Belbo, sfuggito all’errore del mondo e dei suoi
moti, era divenuto lui, ora, il punto di sospensione, il Perno Fisso, il Luogo a cui si
sostiene la volta del mondo (Eco, 1988: 473)

Other main characters take on the role of model authors, too. Diotallevi, for exam-
ple, devises the plan for a new universal history:

‘Stiamo gradatamente ricostruendo la storia del mondo’, disse Diotallevi. ‘Stiamo

riscrivendo il Libro. Mi piace, mi piace’ (Eco, 1988: 321)

The fact that this is taken at face value by other characters poses the question of
limits of interpretation. The novel critically deals with concepts of historiography,
especially with the question that had been posed by Hayden White: whether any
form of historical truth can be achieved or whether every reconstruction of his-
torical events is first of all a narration organized according to fictional practices
(White, 1973, 1978). The protagonists in Il pendolo di Foucault clearly opt for the
latter.
By having the narrative scheme slip from the hands of its creators and assume an
existence of its own, Eco illustrates some thoughts formulated in his Postille a ‘Il
nome della rosa’. After its publication, a text is separated from its author, which
makes it accessible to any kind of interpretation: ‘Il testo è lı̀, e produce i propri
effetti’ (Eco, 1994b: 509). The reader of Eco’s novel runs the same risk of losing her/
himself in fiction as the ‘readers’ of the plan. Thus, every reader must either be aware
of her/his relative perspective or take a turn towards the irrational. Placing the
interpretation in a relevant context with clearly defined limits overcomes the decon-
structive drift.
However, the text does not end with this statement against deconstruction and for
limits of interpretation. All of a sudden, an ontological aspect becomes important.
The last scene has Casaubon take refuge in Belbo’s country house. He anxiously
awaits the arrival of some members of a secret society who apparently have been
pursuing him. He finds some of Belbo’s notes that make for a surprising turn of
events: Belbo writes he had had a ‘true’ experience of the moment while playing the
trumpet at a funeral when he tried to sustain the last note as long as possible.
Following this episode, Belbo opens up a distinction between truth and lies that is
connected to the experience of presence (in terms of Gumbrecht, 2004). As a result,
Casaubon understands that a metaphysical experience can be rooted only in the
singularity of the moment.
With this reference to an aesthetic, pre-semiotic experience, the emphasis is once
again shifted. While the bulk of the novel creates a distinction between good and bad

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interpretation of signs, the last couple of pages open up a wholly different kind of
distinction, namely that between a world of signs (and consequently interpretation)
and a signless universe of presence. In Eco’s theoretical writings a similar shift can be
identified, but not until 1997, when Kant e l’ornitorinco is published. In this text, Eco
resumes what he had already stated in Il pendolo di Foucault:7 in a postmodern world
there are infinite ‘prospettive sull’essere’ (Eco, 1997: 31). Thus, being is a process of
continuous deconstruction, a mere effect of language – and the world therefore the
result of a series of interpretations. According to Eco, a rational postmodern human
being cannot ignore this. Nonetheless, a ‘zoccolo duro dell’essere’ (Eco, 1997: 36), a
hard resistance of being, remains. One can consider a certain resistance to language
despite being constituted by language. In the final pages of Il pendolo di Foucault this
resistance against interpretation is established for the very first time. Thus, within
Eco’s writings not only literature is influenced by theory, but also theory by
literature.

The return of subject and narration in La misteriosa

fiamma della regina Loana
The resistance of being against interpretation forms a central motive of La misteriosa
fiamma della regina Loana as well. As I will show, it goes along with a new emphasis
on the subject and its identity. The novel is divided into three parts, each of which
corresponds to a certain type of historical narrative. The first part – the awakening of
the protagonist Yambo from a coma – is interspersed with intertextual
references that serve as an additional layer to Yambo’s quest for identity.8 The
second part – Yambo’s search for his past in the attic of his childhood home –
combines historical facts with images to form a ‘multimedia hypertextuality’. In
the third part, a blurring of the lines between autobiography, history, and reality
takes place and leads to a narrative that Rocco Capozzi calls ‘a neorealist type of
fiction’ (Capozzi, 2006: 466).
While Capozzi, whose remarks on the structure of the text I am following,
mainly deals with the second part of the novel in order to illustrate the text’s ‘hyper-
textuality,’9 I will add some points regarding the (re)construction of the
protagonist’s identity. Therefore, I will provide a detailed analysis of the first part.
The protagonist comes out of a coma and central aspects of his identity are lost. They
are replaced by textual fragments, which not only suggest places and events, but also
his own name: ‘Mi chiamo Arthur Gordon Pym’ (Eco, 2004: 7). What in Il nome della
rosa was a carefree play with quotations and historical events (Schilling, 2012a: 73–
103) now takes on a different quality: the novel is not about the creation of a his-
torical world out of fragments of texts, but about the representation of a tangible
(albeit literary) subject whose dilemma is just as tangible: the loss of the self.
Although the protagonist’s identification with one of Edgar Allan Poe’s fictional
characters undeniably evokes comic potential, this changes quickly as the reader
learns that the protagonist’s personality is almost entirely made up of fictional
elements. With this in mind, the title of the chapter takes on a different meaning

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Schilling 7

as well (Giordano, 2004: 173): it can be recognized as a reference to ‘The Burial of the
Dead,’ the first poem in TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, whose first verse reads ‘April is
the cruellest month’ and goes on to say that it mixes ‘memory and desire’ (Eliot,
1952: 17). In addition to this blending of memory fragments and desire, the seasonal
imagery that is developed in the poem’s subsequent lines can be transferred to the
protagonist’s situation in La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana: ‘Winter kept us
warm, covering/Earth in forgetful snow [. . .]. Summer surprised us’ (Eliot, 1952: 17).
Although there is no manuscript fiction as in Il nome della rosa, the novel makes
fundamental statements regarding the ‘textuality of reality.’ However, the allusions
to palimpsests, textual fragments, and quotations stem from a different motivation
than in Eco’s earlier novels. Unlike Il pendolo di Foucault, La misteriosa fiamma della
regina Loana does not see history and literature as a repository for an arbitrary
manipulation of fact and fiction, but uses it – similar to Baudolino – as a way for
the protagonist to remedy an existential deficit: the loss of his identity.
The second and third parts of the novel contain a multitude of illustrations.
They serve to emphasize the purported authenticity of the fictional narrative in a
different medium (Capozzi, 2006: 463). La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana
has often been described as a novel about Eco’s generation.10 Such an interpret-
ation becomes especially plausible when seen in connection with Eco’s theoretical
writings such as Opera aperta, Lector in fabula, or I limiti dell’interpretazione where
he develops the concept of a model reader who produces a context-dependent
interpretation based on ‘economical criteria.’11 Model readers who could appreci-
ate La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana as an ‘open work of art’ might be
contemporaries of the author; for them, the illustrations regarding Yambo’s activ-
ity could serve as an incentive for a (re)construction of their own youth based on
collective memories. However, this could also work for readers of a younger gen-
eration. Guided by the protagonist, readers may be able to unite history and fic-
tion, truth and invention, the individual and the collective while developing a
critical awareness of what oscillating between the opposite positions actually
means.
And yet, Eco does not furnish a seemingly objective foundation on which the
individual reconstruction of one’s biography or history in general could be based.
Since Yambo has lost his memory, the illustrations of comic books, textbooks, and
magazines actually do not emphasize the postulated authenticity of a fictional
story by making it more plausible via the medium of the image. Instead, they
foreground the fictional nature of the text. By the example of its protagonist, the
text demonstrates that biography as well as historiography is essentially fictional
in nature (White, 1973, 1978).12 The collective memory, suggested by the illustra-
tions, is nothing but the material basis for a necessarily individual fiction.
Consequently, an interpretation that describes Yambo as a ‘detective,’ a ‘historian,’
or an ‘archeologist’ (something the second part of the novel indeed does suggest)13
is questioned by the third part of the novel. There, something happens that may
be considered a narrative (re)construction of the subject, narrowing the broad, col-
lective gaze of the earlier parts down onto the single person. It is not about

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constructing an entertaining plot that plays with historical elements from the safe
distance of the narrator but about asking the existential question of one’s own
identity: ‘The protagonist’s goal . . . is not to discover “whodunnit” but “who am
I?”’ (Cannon, 2007: 408).
It is only there that the encyclopedia of collective memory, developed during the
second part of the novel, becomes a personal story. Yambo’s sudden ability to tell his
story coincides with his temporary recovery: he regains his autobiographical
memory. Although he falls into a comatose state, he is wide awake, which leads to
a radically new perception of time:

[P]osso spostarmi da un ricordo all’altro e vivo ciascuno come un hic et nunc.

(Eco, 2004: 313)
[I]l vantaggio è che ora posso rivivere tutto, senza che ci sia più un avanti e un indietro,
in un circolo che potrebbe durare per ere geologiche e in questo cerchio, o spirale, Lila
mi è sempre e di nuovo accanto (Eco, 2004: 412)

Narrativity turns out to be essential for the subject’s mental health (Cannon, 2007:
412). And just like the protagonist, the author, too, reconstructs fundamental
aspects of his biography (Cannon, 2007: 406–407). Rightfully therefore, La
misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana has been called Eco’s most autobiographical
novel (Capozzi, 2006: 479). Not only does the novel represent Eco’s ‘way of thinking’
in quite some detail by piecing together a multitude of textual and visual fragments
to form a life that, in many respects, resembles that of its author, it also outlines
Eco’s poetics: What Opera aperta describes as the reader’s task, is put into execution
in the second part. What Il nome della rosa suggests as the principle of construction
and exemplifies in the book’s epilogue, is indicated in the first part and motivated by
Yambo’s amnesia.
For Eco, who has always been opposed to a ‘naı̈ve’ representation of reality,14
it is quite plausible to not write a ‘real’ autobiography but a literary one which,
nonetheless, deals with his personal memory, his life, and his identity. This auto-
biographical element is emphasized by the photograph Eco uses in connection
with his protagonist. In it, one can see Eco and his sister as little children (Capozzi,
2006: 472), a fact that stresses the interdependence of remembering, forgetting,
and the (re)construction of the self in La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana. A
new, non-postmodern form of historiography takes place. Metahistoriographic
fiction, which in Il nome della rosa had taken the place of the realistic historical
novel, is itself substituted by a neo-realistic novel about history. This is mainly
accomplished by the reconstitution of the subject on the basis of an individual
narrative.
However, the novel does not say whether this reconstitution of the subject is
sustainable in the long run. An ambiguity is initiated by a direct reference to Eco’s
third novel, L’isola del giorno prima: ‘L’Isola Non-Trovata invece rimane, in
quanto inattinigibile, sempre mia’ (Eco, 2004: 401). In L’isola del giorno prima
the island near which the protagonist’s ship is stranded serves as a utopia for his

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Schilling 9

desires and fantasies, which are impossible to reach. The novel ends when the
protagonist steps into the water and lets himself be carried away by the waves
into a nothingness between time and space (Eco, 1994a: 465). The reader does
not learn whether his journey into the unknown is successful (Schilling, 2012b:
194–213). Ultimate failure and self-fulfillment are presented as equally plausible
options in a very similar manner to the reconstruction of the self in La misteriosa
fiamma della regina Loana.
A second passage harks back to Il nome della rosa:

Non so se sia la misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana che sta ardendo nei miei lobi
incartapecoriti, se un qualche elisir stia tentando di lavare i fogli bruniti della mia
memoria di carta, ancora affetti da molte gore che rendono illeggibile quella parte
del testo che ancora mi sfugge, o se sia io che cerco di spingere i miei nervi a uno
sforzo insopportabile. [N]el mio cervello i corpi cavernosi si riempiono di sangue,
qualcosa sta per esplodere – o per sbocciare. (Eco, 2004: 444)

In regard to syntax as well as content, these final sentences correspond to the

end of Eco’s first novel: ‘Fa freddo nello scriptorium, il pollice mi duole. Lascio
questa scrittura, non so per chi, non so più intorno a che cosa: stat rosa pristina
nomine, nomina nuda tenemus’ (Eco, 1980: 503). The double reference to Eco’s
earlier novels at the end of La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana emphasizes
both the autobiographical element and the ambiguity that comes with it. While
the novel does in fact accomplish a reconstruction of the self by resorting to a
return of narrative, it is not clear whether this narration has any relevance for
(the protagonist’s) reality. The final decision about that – and many other
aspects – remains with the reader.
The analysis of La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana therefore reveals
multiple shifts of paradigm regarding the manner of historical narrative. At
first, the text seems to emphasize the intertextual play with quotations, explicitly
calling attention to historical conditionality. Its second part discusses various
forms of cultural memory and options for a reconstruction of history. The third
part creates identity by resorting to historical narrative. The story is told from
the perspective of a first-person narrator who recounts the events of his life in an
autodiegetic fashion and whose aim it is to deal with his past in order to learn for
the present. This preoccupation with one’s identity takes the place of a pluralistic
and multiperspective approach chosen by Eco’s postmodernist historical novels
and referred to in the first two parts of La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana.
While it is certainly not unimportant to know that there are innumerable ways to
confront the past, the effect of identity construction motivates the protagonist
requires a subjective stance towards history. By constructing a close relation
between micro- and macro-history, Yambo builds a foundation for his present
that is based on narrative. The novel does not tell whether this is reliable or only
an illusion. Thus, the third part can be interpreted as a salvation as well as a
catastrophe – which provides the novel with a similarly ambiguous end as the

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epilogue does in Il nome della rosa and the trumpet scene in Il pendolo di
Foucault.

Summary
Surprising at first, La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana provokes interest in the
subject’s existential conditionality. In contrast to a postmodern questioning of
grand metanarratives and historiography, the novel constructs history as well as a
personal story. In the tension between reality and fiction the text settles for the latter.
It turns its back on postmodern theories and returns to narrative instead. However,
the validity of both story and history is limited to a personal context. In that respect,
the novel refers to aspects of Eco’s former novels, for example the ontologically
questioning end of Il nome della rosa and the experience of presence with which Il
pendolo di Foucault concludes. Thus, even for Eco’s ‘theory-aware’ novels a tendency
towards the narrative can be identified that becomes stronger in his later works
especially La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public,
commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes
1. See Parker (1988), and Bondanella (1997: 93) who speaks of ‘postmodern theory and
practice in The Name of the Rose.’
2. By ‘theory’, I refer to literary theory, especially French theory. See Ryan (2012) for
a concise description of the phenomenon of ‘theory-awareness’ in contemporary
literature.
3. The concept is already important for Lector in fabula. See also Schilling (2012b).
4. As a terminological approach, I propose to follow Nünning’s typology that classifies
historical novels into a wide range between ‘fictionalized history’ and ‘metahistoriographic
fiction.’ Nünning (1995, 1999, 2002) distinguishes five forms of historical narrative with
fluid boundaries in between: a historical narrative may be termed documentary if historical
events and characters are at its center. It may be called realistic if a fictional plot is
integrated into a precise historical setting that most of the time goes hand in hand with
a chronological representation and a teleological implication. A historical narrative is
revisionist if it manifests a critical stance towards the past, i.e. if it makes use of fictional
and innovative forms of historical representation for critical purposes. The term
metahistorical is used for a narrative that reflects on problems of historiography by
employing literary techniques: cultural memory, retrospective establishment of meaning
and construction of a collective identity play an important role in this context. Finally, the
term metahistoriographic denotes fiction in which problems of historiography are
addressed directly. An argumentative discourse about the conditions of historical insight
and an explicit representation of the distance between the actual historical event and its
fictionalization are core aspects of this kind of narrative. Didactic and cognitive features, as

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Schilling 11

well as poetological, epistemological, and metahistoriographic self-reflection, are essen-

tial to the text.
5. See Lyotard (1979: 7): ‘En simplifiant à l’extrême, on tient pour ‘postmoderne’ l’incré-
dulité à l’égard des métarécits.’
6. See Eco (1990: 51): ‘Io ritengo che oggi molte teorie e pratiche “reader-oriented” siano in
qualche modo debitrici della tradizione ermetica.’
7. And, with slight differences, in L’isola del giorno prima (Eco, 1994a) as well.
8. Cannon (2007: 404) therefore considers Yambo ‘the paradigmatic postmodern character.
[H]e is all surface, suspended in the present with no beginning or end.’
9. According to Capozzi (2006: 468), ‘hypertextuality is meant primarily as non-linear read-
ing, as an intricate web of possibilities of reading, and above all as a cognitive process of
making associations among words and images as well as of connecting links, nodes,
fragments, lexias, texts, etc. selected by the reader who may choose to follow a variety
of paths in his search, depending on his curiosity, knowledge and experience.’
10. Capozzi (2006: 465) names ‘double coded hypertextual strategies that make the novel less
about the personal story of Yambo’s quest for identity, and more about the story/history
of a generation that Yambo defines as “schizophrenic.”’
11. Eco (1962) considers art a phenomenon of communication. Every act of reception means
an interpretative dialogue between art and recipient. ‘Open works of art’ are completed
only in the moment of their reception. Eco (1979, 1990), however, discusses limits of
interpretation. He argues that neither considering only the author’s intention (intentio
auctoris) nor granting the reader absolute interpretative freedom by following her/his
intention (intentio lectoris) can do justice to literature. Therefore he proposes to follow
the intentio operis which means an interpretative cooperation between text and reader
during which the perspective of the interpretation is guided by textual structures.
12. The academic discussion of White’s proposals is covered in Schilling (2012a: 25–32).
13. See Capozzi (2006: 471): ‘This is Eco’s way of underlining Yambo’s objectivity, or better
yet his ability to maintain aesthetic and critical distance while recovering innumerable
archived items from the past.’
14. According to Eco (1994b: 529), in times of postmodernism one has to cite a declaration of
love when declaring one’s love to avoid a ‘wrong innocence’ when trying to say something
serious.

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