Death of an Italian Man of Letters
February 23, 2016
On February 19, the academic and literary worlds mourned the death of Umberto Eco (1932-2016), an Italian philosopher, novelist, and literary critic. He was a highly respected scholar within the academic world, best known for his writings in the field of semiotics, the study of how cultures communicate through signs and symbols. Unexpectedly, however, Eco became internationally famous in the literary world with a best-seller—his first novel, The Name of the Rose. Published in Italian in 1980 as Il nome della fossa, it was soon translated into English and many other languages.
The Name of the Rose is a murder mystery set in a monastery in northern Italy in 1327. An English monk named William of Baskerville and his assistant, Adso (who narrates the story as an old man), are brought to the monastery to investigate the unexplained killing of a young monk found at the bottom of a well. The novel deals with the nature of truth as seen from the viewpoints of theology, philosophy, history, and scholarship. A film was made of the book in 1986, starring Sean Connery as William and Christian Slater as his assistant.
Eco continued to produce fiction until shortly before his death. He further developed his preoccupation with words, symbols, and ideas in the thriller Foucault’s Pendulum (1988). The novel The Island of the Day Before (1994) is set in the 1600′s and tells about a man trapped on a mysterious ship. Baudolino (2002) is a historical novel set in the 1100′s that starts in Europe and ends in East Asia. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2004) is an illustrated novel about a man who tries to reconstruct his life after losing his memory. The Prague Cemetery (2011) is a complex historical novel of political conspiracies and intrigue set in Europe during the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. Numero Uno (2015) is a short novel about a political scandal in Italy in 1992.
Eco’s books on semiotics include A Theory of Semiotics (1976) and Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984). Eco also wrote a book on aesthetics, The Open Work (1962, revised 1972 and 1976). (Aesthetics is the study of theories about the arts.) In History of Beauty (2004), Eco explored historical concepts of beauty. In a companion book, On Ugliness (2007), Eco examined the idea of ugliness from a critical and historical perspective. The Search for the Perfect Language (1995) is a history of attempts to reconstruct an original language.
Eco published several collections of essays. Apocalypse Postponed (1994) examines various aspects of modern popular culture. Eco’s essays on literature were collected in On Literature (2004). Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism (2007) is a collection of essays that appeared in Italian newspapers from 2000 to 2005. He also edited a weekly column for L’Espresso, a leading Italian news magazine.
Eco was born on Jan. 5, 1932, in Alessandria, Italy. He studied philosophy at Turin University and worked for Italian state television (1954-1959) before becoming a lecturer at Turin (1961-1964). He spent periods teaching at the universities of Milan and Florence, and from 1971 to 2007 he was professor of semiotics at Bologna.
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