In the Name of the Reason

Umberto Ecös The Name of the Rose (1980) is a puzzling, scary (anti)detective story with many attributes of both a medieval murder mystery and a postmodern semiotic text. As a tour de force of medieval scholar ship and a richly detailed portrait of an abbey, it-s an embellishment of the intellectual life of an age where the metanarrative of rationalism disintegrates. In spite of its radical and theoretical critiques of all literary and philosophical traditions of reason, there is an alluring realistic narratology in the text that guides its telos. The apparent assertion of irrationality is a semiotic motif of the novel. Thus, by drawing on the postulates of Post Theory, the study explores the fall and rise of reason in the novel. The book also probes how Eco employs Post Theoretical concerns like authorial presence, simple narratology and stoppable heteroglossia in the novel.

Dr. Rajesh James is Assistant Professor of English at Research Department of English, Sacred HeratCollege, Kochi. He received Ph.D. in Film Studies from the Department of English, University of Calicut. His articles have appeared in Web of Science/Scopus indexed journals such as Ariel: A Review of International English Literature and EPW