‘구도(求道)의 춤꾼’으로 불리는 무용수 홍신자(83)에게 “당신이 가장 중시하는 가치는 무엇이냐” 묻자 “자유”라는 답이 즉각 튀어나왔다. 왜 아니겠는가. 1993년 출간돼 70만부 팔린 그의 산문집 제목은 ‘자유를 위한 변명’이다. “자유란 무엇인가” 물으니 이런 답이 돌아왔다. “우선 두려움이 없어야 한다. 그러려면 집착이 없어야 하고. 사람들은 보통 물질에 집착한다. 원하는 만큼 물질이 충족되지 않을 때 남과 비교하게 되고 거기에서 두려움이 생긴다. ‘저 사람은 저런 가방을 들었는데, 나는 들지 못했다’ ‘저 사람은 집을 샀는데 나는 사지 못했다’…. 집착이 없고 자유가 없는 ‘나는 나’인 상태가 곧 ‘자유’다.” 지난 11일 서울 인사동의 한 전통 찻집에서 홍신자를 인터뷰했다. 그는 사진기자가 카메라를 들이대자 신고 있던 신발을 벗더니 몸짓 자체로 춤이 되었다. /이태경 기자
올해는 홍신자가 뉴욕서 데뷔한 지 50주년 되는 해. 그의 데뷔작 ‘제례(Mourning)’는 우리의 전통적인 곡(哭) 소리를 내는 것으로 시작해 장례 의식(儀式)을 변형해 구성한 춤이다. 병으로 일찍 세상을 뜬 언니를 기리기 위해 만든 이 작품을 보고 객석의 서양인들이 엉엉 울었다. 다음 날 뉴욕타임스를 비롯한 미국 언론이 일제히 호평했고, 만 28세에 춤을 시작한 이 늦깎이 무용가는 한국 전위예술의 선두 주자로 자리했다. ‘죽음’은 그때부터 지금까지 ‘자유’와 함께 홍신자의 또 다른 화두다.
‘자유를 위한 변명’을 다듬고
죽음에 대한 성찰을 더해
최근 낸 산문집 ‘생의 마지막 날까지’(다산책방)에 홍신자는 이렇게 썼다.
“나는 언제나 죽음과 어깨동무하며 친해지는 중이다. 아마 전보다는 훨씬 더 평온한 마음가짐으로 죽음에게 한쪽 어깨를 내어주고 있는지도 모른다. 나는 죽음을, 죽음은 나를 매일 지켜본다.”
그는 “죽음과 삶은 동전의 양면이니까. ‘그래, 죽음. 거기 있니? 나의 그림자! 거기 있어? 그래, 알고 있어. 하나야 우린….’ 뭐, 그렇게 하나가 되는 거죠” 하더니 깔깔 웃었다.
70세 때 재혼한 독일인 한국학자 베르너 사세 전(前) 한양대 석좌교수와 함께 5년 전부터 제주 서귀포에서 살고 있는 그는 “‘데드 앤드 다잉(dead and dying) 센터’를 설립하는 것이 말년의 꿈”이라고 했다.
“죽음이란 무엇이고, 어떻게 죽는 것이 이상적인가를 고민하는 프로그램을 만들고 싶다. 많은 사람들이 ‘자다가 죽고 싶다’고 말하지만 쉽지는 않다. 마지막 가는 길에 자기 삶을 되돌아보면서 후회, 기쁨 등을 바람에 띄우듯 보내버리는 제의적인(ritualistic) 죽음을 사람들이 경험했으면 좋겠다.”
“당신은 어떻게 죽고 싶은가” 물으니 홍신자는 답했다. “죽음이 다가오면 열흘간 서서히 곡기를 끊는다. 그 과정을 주변 사람들이 참여하며 지켜볼 수 있도록 프로그램을 구성하고 싶다. 시 낭송이나 영상 관람 같은 것도 포함되겠지만, 핵심은 물 위에 둥둥 떠 모든 걸 다 놓아버리는 연습을 나와 참가자들이 다 같이 해 보는 거다. 죽음은 ‘놓는 것’이니까. 놓지 못하니 다들 악을 쓰다 가는 거다. 죽고 싶지 않은 마음까지 놓아버리는 것이 ‘자연사’라 생각한다.”
홍신자는 평생 시대를 앞서 간 ‘아방가르드’였다. 서른여섯에 “이른 성공이 허무하다. 내가 누군지 깨닫고 싶다”며 인도로 떠났다. 히말라야 오두막에서 해골바가지에 밥을 담아 먹으며 살았다. 3년 후 돌아와 한국 사회에 명상과 채식 열풍을 일으켰다. 마흔에 열두 살 연하의 화가와 결혼했고, 임신 7개월의 부른 배를 드러내고 춤을 췄다. 1993년 영구 귀국 후엔 경기도 안성에 머물며 누드 캠프를 열기도 했다. 경외와 찬탄의 대상이자 논란의 중심이기도 한 이 예술가는 자신의 죽음마저도 춤으로 만들려 하고 있었다. “노화는 곧 성숙”이라고 홍신자는 말한다. 여전히 무대에 선다는 사실이 그 증거다. “80이 넘으니 무대와 익숙해졌고, 그 위에서 자유로워졌다. ‘잘해야지’ ‘이거 틀리면 안 되는데’ 같은 두려움이 더 이상 없다.”
“당신에게 춤이란 무엇인가” 물으니 그는 팔을 죽 뻗어 올리며 말했다.
“춤은 내 몸과 영혼이 하나가 되어 자유로운 것 자체다. 내가 서 있는 그 자체가 춤이다.”
원효의 화쟁(和諍)을 모두 옳고 모두 그르다는 개시개비(皆是皆非)로 해석하는 담론이 상당히 세를 얻고 있다. 불교학에서 탁월한 한 교수가 이렇게 해석하고 이를 칼럼, 책, 강연 등을 통하여 수차례에 걸쳐 전파하고 도법 스님의 화쟁위원회가 이런 대응과 실천을 여러 해 지속하면서, 수많은 이들이 진영의 논리를 떠나 상대방의 입장에서 생각하자는 실천에 편승하고 있다.
<장아함경>이나 <우다나경>에 보면 우리가 잘 아는 장님 코끼리 만지기 비유가 나온다. 등과 다리와 꼬리만 만진 장님들은 각각 코끼리가 언덕처럼, 기둥처럼, 밧줄처럼 생겼다고 주장하며 서로 싸웠다. 부처님은 사이비인 육사외도의 주장이 이들 장님과 같음을 비판하기 위하여 이 비유를 활용하였다.
원효는 이 비유를 끌어와 화쟁에 대해 설명한다. 누구든 코끼리를 말하고 있는 것은 사실이므로 옳지만[皆是], 누구도 코끼리의 전모를 보지 못한 채 부분을 전체로 오인하고 있으니 그르다[皆非]는 것이다. 한 교수는 이를 근거로 화쟁의 핵심이 바로 개시개비이니, 다른 사람의 주장에도 귀를 기울이는 ‘평화로운 다툼’의 과정을 통해 코끼리의 전모를 완성할 수 있다며 이를 4대강, 강정 등 한국사회의 갈등을 해결하는 데도 적용하자고 주장한다. 보수도 그래야 하지만 진보 진영도 정부쪽 이야기를 경청하라고 주문도 하였다. 도법 스님은 ‘진영의 감옥’에서 탈피하자며 4대강 문제 등에 정부쪽과 이에 반대하는 사람을 함께 불러서 토론회를 가졌고, 노동이나 종단 개혁, 최근의 서의현 사태에서도 이런 방식을 고수하고 있다.
이는 선한 동기에서 비롯된 것이고 설핏 보면 균형을 갖춘 합리적 방식 같지만, 실제나 결과는 그렇지 않다.
화쟁이 개시개비인 것은 옳지만 화쟁의 핵심은 아니다. 개시개비는 화쟁의 출발점일 뿐이며 이는 관념의 해석일 뿐이다. 화쟁은 ‘대립물 사이의 연기적 깨우침’이다. 극렬하게 싸우던 두 집단이 서로 긴밀하게 의존하고 있어 상생하는 것이 모두 잘되는 길임을 깨우치면 싸움을 멈출 것이다.
한 이야기를 예로 들자. 신병이 추운 겨울날에 찬 물로 세수하고 있었다. 지나가던 소대장이 이를 보고 측은한 마음이 들어 “식당에 가서 온수를 달래라.”고 했다. 신병은 그렇게 했다가 고참에게 군기가 빠졌다고 두들겨 맞았다. 다음 날 아침 인사계가 신병에게 “식당의 김병장에게 내가 세수할 온수를 달래서 가지고 와라.”고 시켰다. 신병이 그리 하자 인사계는 신병에게 그 물로 세수하라고 일렀다. 소대장과 인사계 모두 신병에 대한 자비심도 있었고 개시개비의 화쟁적 사고를 하였다. 하지만, 소대장은 여러 조건을 고려하지 못하고 신병의 실체만 보았다. 반면에 인사계는 고참과 신병, 자신과 신병 사이의 연기관계를 파악하였기에 소대장과 다른 사고와 행동을 한 것이다.
세월호, 임금피크제, 서의현 사태 모두 마찬가지다. 대립자 사이에 놓인 조건과 인과관계를 무시하고 실체만 바라보고 개시개비하면, 관념은 가능할지라도 현실의 장에서는 화쟁이 이루어지지 않는다. 실제로 양자를 불러다가 대화를 시켜서 도법 스님이 해결한 것은 아무 것도 없었다. 그 교수의 말대로 강간당한 소녀에게 가해자 입장에서 생각해보라는 것은 화쟁이 아니라 폭력이다. 특히, 현대사회에서 대립자 사이의 조건을 형성하는 것 가운데 가장 강력한 요인은 권력이다. 권력이 심하게 기울어진 곳에서 화쟁은 가능하지 않다.
정부나 종단이 압도적으로 강력한 권력을 갖고 있고 많은 진실을 은폐하는 상황에서 약자보고 진영의 감옥에서 벗어나 상대방 입장에서 생각하라는 것은 아무리 동기가 순수하더라도 강자를 편든 것으로 귀결된다. (미국 연방대법관으로 그의 이름을 딴 법학대학원이 뉴욕시에 있을 정도로 명판결과 명판결문으로 유명한 벤저민 카아도조(Benjamin N. Cardozo)가 “법관으로 재임 중 중립적이었다고 생각한 판결은 나중에 보니 강자에게 기울어진 판결이었고, 재임 중 약자에게 유리한 판결을 내렸다고 한 것은 나중에 보니 중립적이었다.”라고 한 것도 이런 관계를 고려한 발언이다.) 이런 결과를 모르고 계속 개시개비를 주장한다면 무지한 것이고, 알고 그런다면 이는 사악한 것이다.
그러기에 세월호든, 임금피크제든, 서의현 사태든 이 문제를 화쟁으로 해결하려면, 양자가 놓인 조건을 파악하고, 먼저 대화의 장만큼은 권력이 대칭이 되도록 만들어야 한다. 이 일에 실패하면 약자의 편에 서라. 그것이 바로 ‘공정한’ 화쟁을 이루는 길이다.
The monastery is disturbed by the death of Adelmo of Otranto, an illuminator revered for his illustrations. Adelmo was skilled at comical artwork, especially concerning religious matters. William is asked by the monastery's abbot, Abo of Fossanova, to investigate the death: During his enquiry he has a debate with one of the oldest monks in the abbey, Jorge of Burgos, about the theological meaning of laughter, which Jorge despises.
The next day, a scholar of Aristotle and translator of Greek and Arabic, Venantius of Salvemec, is found dead in a vat of pig's blood. Severinus of Sankt Wendel, the herbalist, tells William that Venantius's body had black stains on the tongue and fingers, which suggests poison. Benno of Uppsala, a rhetoric scholar, reveals to William that the librarian, Malachi of Hildesheim, and his assistant Berengar of Arundel, had a homosexual relationship, until Berengar seduced Adelmo, who committed suicide out of conflicting religious shame. The only other monks who knew about the indiscretions were Jorge and Venantius. In spite of Malachi prohibiting William and Adso from entering the labyrinthine library, they penetrate the labyrinth, discovering that there must be a hidden room, entitled the finis Africae after the presumed geographical edge of the world. They find a book on Venantius' desk along with some cryptic notes. Someone snatches the book, and they pursue to no avail.
By the day after, Berengar has gone missing, which puts pressure on William. William learns of how Salvatore of Montferrat, and Remigio of Voragine, two cellarer monks, had a history with the Dulcinian heretics. Adso returns to the library alone in the evening. When leaving the library through the kitchen, Adso is seduced by a peasant girl, with whom he has his first sexual experience. After confessing to William, Adso is absolved, although he still feels guilty.
On the fourth day, Berengar is found drowned in a bath, with his fingers and tongue bearing stains similar to those found on Venantius. Bernard Gui, a member of the Inquisition, arrives to search for the murderer via papal decree. Gui arrests the peasant girl Adso loved, as well as Salvatore, accusing them both of heresy and witchcraft after finding them with Salvatore's amateurish love-spell (eggs, a black cat, and a chicken).
During the theological disputation the next day, Severinus, after obtaining a "strange" book, is found dead in his laboratory (struck on the head by a heavy armillary sphere), prompting William and Adso to search for the book. They find it, but do not recognize it; instead it is taken by Benno, who then agrees to Malachi's request that he become Assistant Librarian. Remigio and Malachi are both witnesses of Severinus' death. Remigio is interrogated in a court setting by Gui, who is able to force him to reveal a heretical past, and then to falsely confess to the crimes of the Abbey under threat of torture. Remigio, Salvatore, and the peasant girl are taken away and assumed to be doomed. In response to the recent tragedies in the abbey, Jorge leads a sermon about the coming of the Antichrist.
Malachi, near death, returns to the early sermon on the sixth day, and his final words concern scorpions. Nicholas of Morimundo, the glazier, tells William that whoever is the librarian would then become the Abbot, and with new light, William goes to the library to search for evidence. The Abbot is distraught that William has not solved the crime, and that the Inquisition is undermining him, so he dismisses William. That night, William and Adso penetrate the library once more and enter the finis Africae by solving its etymological riddle by chance.
William and Adso discover Jorge waiting for them in the forbidden room. He confesses that he has been masterminding the Abbey for decades, and his last victim is the Abbot himself, who has been trapped to suffocate inside a second passage to the chamber. William asks Jorge for the second book of Aristotle's Poetics, which Jorge gladly offers. While flipping through the pages, which speak of the virtues of laughter, William deduces that Jorge – unable to destroy this last copy of the book – laced the pages with an unidentified plant-based poison stolen years before from Severinus's laboratory, assuming correctly that a reader would have to lick his fingers to turn them. Furthermore, William concludes that Venantius was translating the book as he succumbed to the poison. Berengar found him and, fearing exposure, disposed of the body in pig's blood before claiming the book and dying in the baths. Malachi was coaxed by Jorge to retrieve it from Severinus' storage, where Berengar had displaced it, so he killed Severinus, retrieved the book and died after investigating its contents. Jorge confirms William's deductions and justifies this unlikely course of actions as part of a divine plan.
The deaths correspond in order and symbolism with the Seven Trumpets, which call for objects falling from the sky (Adelmo's jump from a tower), pools of blood (Venantius), poison from water (Berengar), bashing of the stars (Severinus' head was crushed with a celestial orb), scorpions (which a delirious Malachi referred to), locusts and fire. This sequence, interpreted throughout the plot (to the verge of being accepted by William himself) as the deliberate work of a serial killer, was in fact the chance result of Jorge's scheme. He consumes the book's poisoned pages and uses Adso's lantern to start a fire, which kills him, burns down the library, and then spreads to destroy the abbey as a whole. Adso summons the monks in a futile attempt to extinguish the fire. As the fire spreads to the rest of the abbey, William laments his failure and there is a hint that he begins to lose his faith in God. Confused and defeated, William and Adso escape the abbey. Years later, Adso, now aged, returns to the ruins of the abbey and salvages any remaining book scraps and fragments from the fire, eventually creating a lesser library.
Eco was a professor of semiotics, and employed techniques of metanarrative, partial fictionalization, and linguistic ambiguity to create a world enriched by layers of meaning. The solution to the central murder mystery hinges on the contents of Aristotle's book on Comedy, which has been lost. In spite of this, Eco speculates on the content and has the characters react to it. Through the motif of this lost and possibly suppressed book which might have aestheticized the farcical, the unheroic and the skeptical, Eco also makes an ironically slanted plea for tolerance and against dogmatic or self-sufficient metaphysical truths — an angle which reaches the surface in the final chapters.[2] In this regard, the conclusion mimics a novel of ideas, with William representing rationality, investigation, logical deduction, empiricism and also the beauty of the human minds, against Jorge's dogmatism, censoriousness, and pursuit of keeping, no matter the cost, the secrets of the library closed and hidden to the outside world, including the other monks of the Abbey.
The Name of the Rose has been described as a work of postmodernism.[3] The quote in the novel, "books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told", refers to a postmodern idea that all texts perpetually refer to other texts, rather than external reality, while also harkening back to the medieval notion that citation and quotation of books was inherently necessary to write new stories. The novel ends with irony: as Eco explains in his Postscript to the Name of the Rose, "very little is discovered and the detective is defeated."[4] After unraveling the central mystery in part through coincidence and error, William of Baskerville concludes in fatigue that there "was no pattern." Thus Eco turns the modernist quest for finality, certainty and meaning on its head, leaving the nominal plot—that of a detective story—broken, the series of deaths following a chaotic pattern of multiple causes, accident, and arguably without inherent meaning.[3]
The mystery revolves around the abbey library, situated in a fortified tower—the aedificium. This structure has three floors—the ground floor contains the kitchen and refectory, the first floor a scriptorium, and the top floor is occupied by the library.[5] The two lower floors are open to all, while only the librarian may enter the last. A catalogue of books is kept in the scriptorium, where manuscripts are read and copied. A monk who wishes to read a book would send a request to the librarian, who, if he thought the request justified, would bring it to the scriptorium. Finally, the library is in the form of a labyrinth, whose secret only the librarian and the assistant librarian know.[6]
The aedificium has four towers at the four cardinal points, and the top floor of each has seven rooms on the outside, surrounding a central room. There are another eight rooms on the outer walls, and sixteen rooms in the centre of the maze. Thus, the library has a total of fifty-six rooms.[7] Each room has a scroll containing a verse from the Book of Revelation. The first letter of the verse is the letter corresponding to that room.[8] The letters of adjacent rooms, read together, give the name of a region (e.g. Hibernia in the West tower), and those rooms contain books from that region. The geographical regions are:
The aedificium's labyrinth
Fons Adae, 'The earthly paradise' contains Bibles and commentaries, East Tower
Acaia, Greece, Northeast
Iudaea, Judea, East
Aegyptus, Egypt, Southeast
Leones, 'South' contains books from Africa, South Tower
Yspania, Spain, Southwest outer
Roma, Italy, Southwest inner
Hibernia, Ireland, West Tower
Gallia, France, Northwest
Germania, Germany, North
Anglia, England, North Tower
Two rooms have no lettering – the easternmost room, which has an altar, and the central room on the south tower, the so-called finis Africae, which contains the most heavily guarded books, and can only be entered through a secret door. The entrance to the library is in the central room of the east tower, which is connected to the scriptorium by a staircase.[9]
Much attention has been paid to the mystery of what the book's title refers to. In fact, Eco has stated that his intention was to find a "totally neutral title".[4] In one version of the story, when he had finished writing the novel, Eco hurriedly suggested some ten names for it and asked a few of his friends to choose one. They chose The Name of the Rose.[10] In another version of the story, Eco had wanted the neutral title Adso of Melk, but that was vetoed by his publisher, and then the title The Name of the Rose "came to me virtually by chance." In the Postscript to the Name of the Rose, Eco claims to have chosen the title "because the rose is a symbolic figure so rich in meanings that by now it hardly has any meaning left".[4]
The book's last line, "Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus" translates as: "the rose of old remains only in its name; we possess naked names." The general sense, as Eco pointed out,[11] was that from the beauty of the past, now disappeared, we hold only the name. In this novel, the lost "rose" could be seen as Aristotle's book on comedy (now forever lost[citation needed]), the exquisite library now destroyed, or the beautiful peasant girl now dead.
This text has also been translated as "Yesterday's rose stands only in name, we hold only empty names." This line is a verse by twelfth century monk Bernard of Cluny (also known as Bernard of Morlaix). Medieval manuscripts of this line are not in agreement: Eco quotes one Medieval variant verbatim,[12] but Eco was not aware at the time of the text more commonly printed in modern editions, in which the reference is to Rome (Roma), not to a rose (rosa).[13] The alternative text, with its context, runs: Nunc ubi Regulus aut ubi Romulus aut ubi Remus? / Stat Roma pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus. This translates as "Where now is Regulus, or Romulus, or Remus? / Primordial Rome abides only in its name; we hold only naked names."[14]
The title may also be an allusion to the nominalist position in the problem of universals, taken by William of Ockham. According to nominalism, universals are bare names: there is not a universal rose, only a bunch of particular flowers that we artificially singled out by naming them "roses".[citation needed]
A further possible inspiration for the title may be a poem by the Mexican poet and mystic SorJuana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695):
Rosa que al prado, encarnada, te ostentas presuntuosa de grana y carmín bañada: campa lozana y gustosa; pero no, que siendo hermosa también serás desdichada.
This poem appears in Eco's Postscript to the Name of the Rose, and is translated into English in "Note 1" of that book as:
Red rose growing in the meadow, bravely you vaunt thyself in crimson and carmine bathed: displayed in rich and growing state. But no: as precious as thou may seem, Not happy soon thou shall be.[4]
The name of the central character, William of Baskerville, alludes both to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes (compare The Hound of the Baskervilles – also, Adso's description of William in the beginning of the book resembles, almost word for word, Dr. Watson's description of Sherlock Holmes when he first makes his acquaintance in A Study in Scarlet) and to William of Ockham (see the next section). The name of the narrator, his apprentice Adso of Melk, is among other things a pun on Simplicio from Galileo Galilei's Dialogue; Adso deriving from "ad Simplicio" ("to Simplicio"). Adso's putative place of origin, Melk, is the site of a famous medieval library, at Melk Abbey. Further, his name echoes the narrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Watson (omitting the first and last letters, with "t" and "d" being phonetically similar).[15]
The blind librarian Jorge of Burgos is a nod to Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, a major influence on Eco. Borges was blind during his later years and was also director of Argentina's national library; his short story "The Library of Babel" is an inspiration for the secret library in Eco's book.[16] Another of Borges's stories, "The Secret Miracle", features a blind librarian. In addition, a number of other themes drawn from various of Borges's works are used throughout The Name of the Rose: labyrinths, mirrors, sects, and obscure manuscripts and books.
The ending also owes a debt to Borges' short story "Death and the Compass", in which a detective proposes a theory for the behaviour of a murderer. The murderer learns of the theory and uses it to trap the detective. In The Name of the Rose, the librarian Jorge uses William's belief that the murders are based on the Revelation to John to misdirect William, though in Eco's tale, the detective succeeds in solving the crime.
The "poisoned page" motif may have been inspired by Alexandre Dumas' novel La Reine Margot (1845). It was also used in the film Il giovedì (1963) by Italian director Dino Risi.[17] A similar story is associated with the Chinese erotic novel Jin Ping Mei, translated as The Golden Lotus or The Plum in the Golden Vase.
Eco seems also to have been aware of Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Eye of Allah", which touches on many of the same themes, like optics, manuscript illumination, music, medicine, priestly authority and the Church's attitude to scientific discovery and independent thought, and which also includes a character named John of Burgos.
Eco was also inspired by the 19th century Italian novelist Alessandro Manzoni, citing The Betrothed as an example of the specific type of historical novel he purposed to create, in which some of the characters may be made up, but their motivations and actions remain authentic to the period and render history more comprehensible.[18]
Throughout the book, there are Latin quotes, authentic and apocryphal. There are also discussions of the philosophy of Aristotle and of a variety of millenarist heresies, especially those associated with the fraticelli. Numerous other philosophers are referenced throughout the book, often anachronistically, including Wittgenstein.
William of Ockham, who lived during the time at which the novel is set, first put forward the principle known as Ockham's Razor, often summarized as the dictum that one should always accept as most likely the simplest explanation that accounts for all the facts (a method used by William of Baskerville in the novel).
The Spirituals abhor wealth, bordering on the Apostolics or Dulcinianheresy. The book highlights this tension that existed within Christianity during the medieval era: the Spirituals, one faction within the Franciscan order, demanded that the Church should abandon all wealth, and some heretical sects began killing the well-to-do,
while the majority of the Franciscans and the clergy took to a broader interpretation of the gospel.
Also in the background is the conflict between Holy Roman EmperorLouis IV and Pope John XXII, with the Emperor supporting the Spirituals and the Pope condemning them, as proxies in a larger power struggle at the time over authorities claimed by both the Church and Empire.[21] The novel takes place during the Avignon Papacy and in his Prologue, Adso mentions the election of anti-kingFrederick of Austria by Avignon supporters as a rival claimant to Emperor Louis thirteen years before the story begins.[22] Adso's "Last Page" epilogue describes the Emperor's appointment of Nicholas V as anti-Pope in Rome shortly after Louis IV abandoned reconciliation with John XXII (a decision Adso connects with the disastrous events of the novel's theological conference).[23]
A number of the characters, such as Bernard Gui, Ubertino of Casale and the MinoriteMichael of Cesena, are historical figures, though Eco's characterization of them is not always historically accurate. His portrayal of Gui in particular has been widely criticized by historians as an exaggerated caricature; Edward Peters has stated that the character is "rather more sinister and notorious ... than [Gui] ever was historically", and he and others have argued that the character is actually based on the grotesque portrayals of inquisitors and Catholic prelates more broadly in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic literature, such as Matthew Gregory Lewis's The Monk (1796).[24][25] Additionally, part of the novel's dialogue is derived from Gui's inquisitor's manual, the Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis. In the inquisition scene, the character of Gui asks the cellarer Remigius, "What do you believe?", to which Remigius replies, "What do you believe, my Lord?" Gui responds, "I believe in all that the Creed teaches," and Remigius tells him, "So I believe, my Lord." Bernard then points out that Remigius is not claiming to believe in the Creed, but to believe that he, Gui, believes in the Creed; this is a paraphrased example from Gui's inquisitor's manual, used to warn inquisitors of the manipulative tendencies of heretics.[26]
Adso's description of the portal of the monastery is recognizably that of the portal of the church at Moissac, France.[27]Dante Alighieri and his Comedy are mentioned once in passing. There is also a quick reference to a famous "Umberto of Bologna" – Umberto Eco himself.
Nomen Rosae (1988),[30] a Spanish ZX Spectrummaze video game developed by Cocasoft and published by MicroHobby. It only depicts the abbey's library of the novel.[31]
Il Noma della Rosa [sic] (1993) is a Slovak ZX Spectrum adventure video game developed by Orion Software and published by Perpetum.[32]
La Abadía del Crimen Extensum (The Abbey of Crime Extensum), a free remake of La Abadía del Crimen written in Java, was released on Steam in 2016 with English-, French-, Italian-, and Spanish-language versions. This remake greatly enhances the gameplay of the original, while also expanding the story and the cast of characters, borrowing elements from the movie and book. The game is dedicated to Umberto Eco, who died in 2016, and Paco Menéndez, the programmer of the original game.[34]
The novel and original film provided inspiration for aspects of Thief: The Dark Project, and a full mission in its expansion Thief Gold, specifically, monastic orders and the design of the aedificium. Additionally, in the games' level editor DromEd, the intentionally ugly default texture was given the name "Jorge".
The 2022 game Pentiment, which also involves a murder-mystery set in and around a medieval monastery, draws heavily from the novel,[35] as confirmed by director Josh Sawyer and cited in the end-game credits.[36]
Dutch multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen released the song "The Abbey of Synn" on his album Actual Fantasy (1996). Lyrics are direct references to the story.
The Swedish metal band Falconer released the song "Heresy in Disguise" in 2001, part of their Falconer album. The song is based on the novel.
The British metal band Iron Maiden released the song "Sign of the Cross" in 1995, part of their X Factor album. The song refers to the novel.
The British rock band Ten released the album The Name of the Rose (1996), whose eponymous track is loosely based around some of the philosophical concepts of the novel.
Romanian composer Șerban Nichifor released the poem Il nome della rosa for cello and piano 4 hands (1989). The poem is based on the novel.[37]
An eight-part miniseries adaptation, The Name of the Rose, commenced production in Italy in January 2018[38] and premiered on Rai 1 on March 4, 2019. The series was directed by Giacomo Battiato, and stars John Turturro as William of Baskerville, Rupert Everett as Gui, and newcomer Damian Hardung as Adso.[39] The series premiered in the UK on BBC 2 on October 11, 2019.
Some historical errors present are most likely part of the literary artifice, whose contextualization is documented in the pages of the book preceding the Prologue, in which the author states that the manuscript on which the current Italian translation was later carried out contained interpolations due to different authors from the Middle Ages to the Modern era.[40] Eco also personally reported some errors and anachronisms present in various editions of the novel until the revision of 2011:
The novel mentions bell peppers, first in a recipe ("sheep meat with raw pepper sauce"), then in a dream of Adso, but it is an "impossible dish". These peppers were in fact imported from the Americas over a century and a half after the time in which the novel takes place. The same error is repeated later when Adso dreams of a reworking of the Coena Cypriani, in which among the different foods that guests bring to the table appear, in fact, also the peppers.[41]
During the seventh day-night, Jorge tells Guglielmo that Francis of Assisi "imitated with a piece of wood the movements of the player violin", an instrument that did not exist before the 16th century.[41]
At one point in the novel Adso claims to have done something in "a few seconds" when that time measure was not yet used in the Middle Ages.[41]
Moreover, still present in the Note before the Prologue, in which Eco tries to place the liturgical and canonical hours:
If it is assumed, as logical, that Eco referred to the local mean time, the estimate of the beginning of the hour before dawn and the beginning of Vespers (sunset), so those in the final lines ("dawn and sunset around 7.30 and 4.40 in the afternoon"), giving a duration from dawn to noon equal to or less than that from noon to dusk, is the opposite of what happens at the end of November (it is an incorrect application of the Equation of time).
종영
