UMBERTO ECO: RETHINKING HISTORY AND FICTION

CHETAN


ABSTRACT
History give an access to unknown past through narrative structure scaffolding on facts
and manuscripts drawn from achieves. These manuscripts and detailed accounts corroborate with
ruined archeological sites with inscriptions and arts. Thus, history represents rational and
objective truth that answers to all the queries of people about the past. What happens when a
fiction writer chooses stories and characters from history? If a fictional story is based on a
historical incident and characters, what is the difference between fiction and history? Does the
reader not find himself cheated? What stand does the reader take with respect to fiction and
history? These questions inform about the substitutive nature of history and fiction that have
infiltrated into each other territories. Does it really obliterate the difference? The questions
become easier to answer if we define history and fiction in their respective territories. In fact,
neither history is fictitious nor fiction is history; they do not pose a challenge to each other only
inform about narrative structure and their representation through language.

The debate on the substitutive nature of history and fiction becomes important when I
read Umberto Ecos The Name of the Rose, which is drawn from a manuscript, narrating a story
of monastery from the fourteenth century. The manuscript is based on a real incident and Eco
employs its content to write the book incorporating real characters and organizations. He sheds
light on the problems people faced owing to their religious positions, and how science proved
detrimental to religion. The book exhibits the significance of rational thinking and theory of
deduction (primarily used by Sherlock Holmes) to access knowledge. The study has discovered
that history is a source of knowledge about the past which uses scientific methods as a detective
employs to solve a mystery. The study also takes into account the theories of history and fiction
with a specific reference to borrowing of content and characters from other sources without
acknowledgment. Foucaults Pendulum is a story of three editors who develop a PLAN from
second rate manuscripts on historical incidents. A secret organization considers the fictitious
PLAN to be real and kills the three editors. They borrow their content on the Templars and other
secret organizations from the manuscripts. The study shows that history emerges through
multiple texts. Each text has its own significance and essence; each text oozes from the other.
The production of text questions the authenticity from which it has evolved. In Foucaults
Pendulum, Eco sets a conversation between past and present then move to the borrowing from
the past and its articulation in new framework.

Lastly, the study tries to find answers to important questions how history resurrects in
the present? How past is always present? What are the mediums of past re-emergence in the
present? These questions are significant in view of the fact that history is written in the present.
It lacks the pastness of past rather a present of the past. We get the answers to all these questions
in Umberto Ecos essay Towards a New Middle Ages that explains the past never dies; it
revisits the present though in different form.

ABOUT THE BOOK

History give an access to unknown past through narrative structure scaffolding on facts and
manuscripts drawn from achieves. These manuscripts and detailed accounts corroborate with
ruined archeological sites with inscriptions and arts. Thus, history represents rational and
objective truth that answers to all the queries of people about the past. What happens when a
fiction writer chooses stories and characters from history? If a fictional story is based on a
historical incident and characters, what is the difference between fiction and history? Does the
reader not find himself cheated? What stand does the reader take with respect to fiction and
history? These questions inform about the substitutive nature of history and fiction that have
infiltrated into each other territories. Does it really obliterate the difference? The questions
become easier to answer if we define history and fiction in their respective territories. In fact,
neither history is fictitious nor fiction is history; they do not pose a challenge to each other only
inform about narrative structure and their representation through language.

The debate on the substitutive nature of history and fiction becomes important when I read
Umberto Ecos The Name of the Rose, which is drawn from a manuscript, narrating a story of
monastery from the fourteenth century. The manuscript is based on a real incident and Eco
employs its content to write the book incorporating real characters and organizations. He sheds
light on the problems people faced owing to their religious positions, and how science proved
detrimental to religion. The book exhibits the significance of rational thinking and theory of
deduction (primarily used by Sherlock Holmes) to access knowledge. The study has discovered
that history is a source of knowledge about the past which uses scientific methods as a detective
employs to solve a mystery. The study also takes into account the theories of history and fiction
with a specific reference to borrowing of content and characters from other sources without
acknowledgment. Foucaults Pendulum is a story of three editors who develop a PLAN from
second rate manuscripts on historical incidents. A secret organization considers the fictitious
PLAN to be real and kills the three editors. They borrow their content on the Templars and other
secret organizations from the manuscripts. The study shows that history emerges through
multiple texts. Each text has its own significance and essence; each text oozes from the other.
The production of text questions the authenticity from which it has evolved. In Foucaults
Pendulum, Eco sets a conversation between past and present then move to the borrowing from
the past and its articulation in new framework.


Lastly, the book tries to find answers to important questions how history resurrects in the
present? How past is always present? What are the mediums of past re-emergence in the present?
These questions are significant in view of the fact that history is written in the present. It lacks
the pastness of past rather a present of the past. We get the answers to all these questions in
Umberto Ecos essay Towards a New Middle Ages that explains the past never dies; it
revisits the present though in different form.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author works in the capacity of an Assistant Professor (Adhoc) at Bharati College University
of Delhi, India. His research interest areas are Postmodernism, History and Fiction, Cultural
Studies, and Crime and Detection.