UMBERTO ECO: RETHINKING HISTORY AND FICTION

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 Eco’s 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. Foucault’s 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 Foucault’s 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 Eco’s essay – “Towards a New Middle Ages” that explains the past never dies; it revisits the present though in different form. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Umberto Eco to many of us is a known name who gives a new dimension to Postmodern fiction through The Name of the Rose that has received huge appreciation across the world. For me, Umberto Eco was an unidentified personality overshadow by Dan Brown who astonished the popular fiction readers with The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. Being deeply impressed by Brown’s writing, I had made up my mind that I would critically study his work. The kind of complex curiosity Brown created through the Preface of The Da Vinci Code by claiming that some organizations and secret bodies exist even now.

Umberto Eco seemingly is one of the first torch bearers that sparked the discourse on the relationship between history and fiction. Eco informs in the Preface of The Name of the Rose that the roots of the story exist in a manuscript about a real incident occurred in the fourteenth century. The incident was a result of much debated issue then – “Whether the Church should give away its wealth?” The Franciscans debated on the Poverty of Christ and definition of heretics whereas the Dominicans opposed them vehemently. Umberto Eco has not articulated these issues rather tried to represent them through his works. I was of course guided by my own current interests but the starting point of these reflections on history and fiction to excavate deeply was usually a feeling of impatience. Precisely,

 I was greatly resented that the two distinctive disciplines infiltrate into each other territories without cognizance to the damage cause to the prestige. Right from the beginning, I was engaged to find the common ground between history and fiction and confident that the two only produce knowledge or provide information. Language provides the apparatus on which the scaffolding of knowledge erected. The book is a philosophical interpretation of Eco’s fiction and does not bound the reader with its assertions.

Contents

 

I)                        Chapter 1– History and Fiction
II)                     Chapter 2 – The Name of the Rose: A Study of History and Fiction
III)            Chapter 3 – The Name of the Rose: Knowledge, Detection, Threats, Institutionalization and Interpretation
IV)           Chapter 4 - Foucault’s Pendulum: The Creation of Multiple Histories
V)                   Chapter 5 - “Towards of New Middle Ages”: Resurrection of Past in Present
VI)           Conclusion – Eco’ Fictional History and Sensational Fiction
Bibliography

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.

 For More Information – visit

http://centurypublications.co.in/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=3507

UMBERTO ECO: RETHINKING HISTORY AND FICTION

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 Eco’s 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. Foucault’s 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 Foucault’sPendulum, 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 Eco’s essay – “Towards a New Middle Ages” that explains the past never dies; it revisits the present though in different form. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Umberto Eco to many of us is a known name who gives a new dimension to Postmodern fiction through The Name of the Rose that has received huge appreciation across the world. For me, Umberto Eco was an unidentified personality overshadow by Dan Brown who astonished the popular fiction readers with The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. Being deeply impressed by Brown’s writing, I had made up my mind that I would critically study his work. The kind of complex curiosity Brown created through the Preface of The Da Vinci Code by claiming that some organizations and secret bodies exist even now.

Umberto Eco seemingly is one of the first torch bearers that sparked the discourse on the relationship between history and fiction. Eco informs in the Preface of The Name of the Rose that the roots of the story exist in a manuscript about a real incident occurred in the fourteenth century. The incident was a result of much debated issue then – “Whether the Church should give away its wealth?” The Franciscans debated on the Poverty of Christ and definition of heretics whereas the Dominicans opposed them vehemently. Umberto Eco has not articulated these issues rather tried to represent them through his works. I was of course guided by my own current interests but the starting point of these reflections on history and fiction to excavate deeply was usually a feeling of impatience. Precisely,

 I was greatly resented that the two distinctive disciplines infiltrate into each other territories without cognizance to the damage cause to the prestige. Right from the beginning, I was engaged to find the common ground between history and fiction and confident that the two only produce knowledge or provide information. Language provides the apparatus on which the scaffolding of knowledge erected. The book is a philosophical interpretation of Eco’s fiction and does not bound the reader with its assertions.

 

 

Contents

 

I)                        Chapter 1– History and Fiction

II)                     Chapter 2 – The Name of the Rose: A Study of History and Fiction

III)            Chapter 3 – The Name of the Rose: Knowledge, Detection, Threats, Institutionalization and Interpretation

IV)           Chapter 4 - Foucault’s Pendulum: The Creation of Multiple Histories

V)                   Chapter 5 - “Towards of New Middle Ages”: Resurrection of Past in Present

 

VI)           Conclusion – Eco’ Fictional History and Sensational Fiction

Bibliography

 

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.

 

For More Information – visit

http://centurypublications.co.in/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=3507

UMBERTO ECO: RETHINKING HISTORY AND FICTION

 

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 Eco’s 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. Foucault’s 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 Foucault’s 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 Eco’s essay – “Towards a New Middle Ages” that explains the past never dies; it revisits the present though in different form. 

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Umberto Eco to many of us is a known name who gives a new dimension to Postmodern fiction through The Name of the Rose that has received huge appreciation across the world. For me, Umberto Eco was an unidentified personality overshadow by Dan Brown who astonished the popular fiction readers with The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. Being deeply impressed by Brown’s writing, I had made up my mind that I would critically study his work. The kind of complex curiosity Brown created through the Preface of The Da Vinci Code by claiming that some organizations and secret bodies exist even now.

 Umberto Eco seemingly is one of the first torch bearers that sparked the discourse on the relationship between history and fiction. Eco informs in the Preface of The Name of the Rose that the roots of the story exist in a manuscript about a real incident occurred in the fourteenth century. The incident was a result of much debated issue then – “Whether the Church should give away its wealth?” The Franciscans debated on the Poverty of Christ and definition of heretics whereas the Dominicans opposed them vehemently. Umberto Eco has not articulated these issues rather tried to represent them through his works. I was of course guided by my own current interests but the starting point of these reflections on history and fiction to excavate deeply was usually a feeling of impatience. Precisely,

 I was greatly resented that the two distinctive disciplines infiltrate into each other territories without cognizance to the damage cause to the prestige. Right from the beginning, I was engaged to find the common ground between history and fiction and confident that the two only produce knowledge or provide information. Language provides the apparatus on which the scaffolding of knowledge erected. The book is a philosophical interpretation of Eco’s fiction and does not bound the reader with its assertions.

 

Contents

 

I)                        Chapter 1– History and Fiction

 

II)                     Chapter 2 – The Name of the Rose: A Study of History and Fiction

 

III)            Chapter 3 – The Name of the Rose: Knowledge, Detection, Threats, Institutionalization and Interpretation

 

IV)           Chapter 4 - Foucault’s Pendulum: The Creation of Multiple Histories

 

V)                   Chapter 5 - “Towards of New Middle Ages”: Resurrection of Past in Present

 

VI)           Conclusion – Eco’ Fictional History and Sensational Fiction

 

Bibliography

 

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.

 

For More Information – visit

http://centurypublications.co.in/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=3507

What is True Knowledge? – History, Science or Art.

 

Guy Raffa in his article “Eco’s Scientific Imagination” claims that no author in the recent years has worked on redrawing of disciplinary boundaries as Eco has done. The argument originates from Umberto Eco remark, “there is something artistic in a scientific discovery and there is something scientific in that which the naïve call brilliant intuitions of the artist.’ What they share is the felicity of Abduction”[1]. Raffa claims that the method of inquisition a critical role in the fiction, The Name of the Rose; Foucault’s Pendulum; and The Island of the Day Before – “science serves as a focal point for all of Eco’s fiction, just as his theoretical works take account of the state of scientific work on a number of topics.”[2]

Raffa argues that the blending of science discovery and artistic creation are dexterously woven in Eco’s novels. The element of creation and science empirical approach to find unique pattern that raises a critical question on the philosophy.

Umberto Eco does not imitate inductive and deductive approach to give a structure of plot to his text rather chooses a middle of two - Creative abduction “the tentative and hazardous tracing of a system of signification rules which will allow the sign to acquire its meaning”[3]

According to Charles S. Peirce, in relation to (but distinct from) deductive and inductive reasoning, abduction is an inferential process followed when some strange event cannot be explained satisfactorily by a ready-made rule (deduction) or by experience in the form of sufficient empirical evidence (induction).

All disciplines represent a way to the production of knowledge which has been a blind spot or inaccessible to man. The inaccessibility of knowledge presses a unique question on the nature of the true knowledge which has either been a fantasy or imaginative material that require further exploration. From the beginning of the civilization, philosophers have been engaged in finding the true nature of knowledge or rather the crux that leads to the production of knowledge. Michel Foucault has tried to do the same in his book – The Archeology of Knowledge – explaining the basics how the scientific knowledge is produced. If scientific knowledge enables the accessibility of truth, then what is the relevance of historical knowlehistorical knowledgedge.

According to the book - Umberto Eco: Rethinking History and Fiction, “History is a narrative structure that gives us the glimpse of the past and enables to know the truth. It is a narrative of past events supplemented with facts. The facts are available to historians in documents, inscriptions, monuments and achieves. Thus, history produces the knowledge of past. It is an instrument to access truth. However, postmodernism prioritises indeterminacy, multiplicity of meaning, narrative structure and interpretation. This leads us to theorize the production of knowledge, its articulation, presentation and interpretation very differently.”[4]

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[1]  Umberto Eco, The Limits of Interpretation, p. 159

[2] Peter Bondanella, New Essays on Umberto Eco,  Cambridge University Press, 2009 p 56.

[3] Eco,Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, p. 40.

[4] Chetan, Umberto Eco: Rethinking History and Fiction, Century Publication, 2014, p - 23

Who Copies Who? – Umberto Eco vs. Dan Brown

The introduction of the summer of 2003 was the summer of  The Da Vinci Code. It was the summer of  The Da Vinci Code but for kids, it was the summer of  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  The Da Vinci Code mystery is an attempt to figure out what Robert Langdon is involved in. According to Janet Maslin of The New York Times, “it would be a bloc006Bbuster when it first appeared in the spring: “That word is wow, the author is Dan Brown (a name you will want to remember). In this gleefully erudite suspense novel, Mr. Brown takes the format he has been developing through three earlier novels and fine-tunes it to blockbuster perfection. Not since the advent of Harry Potter has an author so flagrantly delighted in leading readers on a breathless chase and coaxing them through hoops.”[1]

According to Marcel Danesi, a University of Toronto semiotics professor (the study of signs and symbols), thinks the convergence of a number of themes that year created the heat.[2]

The themes could be interpreted in the backdrop of rising feminism and the cry for their identity. There was also a growing interest in conspiracies, occultism and crime shows at the time, he notes, all of which the book taps into.

Although Dan Brown claims to have written the book uninfluenced, the fact is indigestible since he took a genre that was sometimes ponderous in the writing to Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum.

In an interview given to Paris Review –

INTERVIEWER - Have you read The Da Vinci Code?

ECO - Yes, I am guilty of that too.

INTERVIEWER - That novel seems like a bizarre little offshoot of Foucault’s Pendulum.

ECO - The author, Dan Brown, is a character from Foucault’s Pendulum! I invented him. He shares my characters’ fascinations—the world conspiracy of Rosicrucians, Masons, and Jesuits. The role of the Knights Templar. The hermetic secret. The principle that everything is connected. I suspect Dan Brown might not even exist.[3]

Umberto Eco –Rethinking History and Fiction also explores the issue in the context of Postmodernism where there is no originality, only re-representation of old knowledge.

“Foucault’s Pendulum is a kind of re-working of medieval culture in contemporary times with the present understanding of the past. Thus, Eco is a torch bearer for the budding historical fiction writers like Dan Brown who hits the market with the sensational fiction on the medieval ages. Dan Brown catches the eyes of world audience with his most famous work – The Da Vinci Code – which also discusses the Rosicrucian and the Templars.”[4]

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[1] Anatomy of the blockbuster – the Da Vinci Code, The star. com.<< http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2014/07/11/anatomy_of_a_blockbuster_the_da_vinci_code.html>>  

[2] Ibid. 2

[3] The Art of Fiction – The Paris Review Interviewed by Lila Azam Zanganeh

[4] Chetan, Umberto Eco: Rethinking History and Fiction, Century Publication, New Delhi 2014, p 77.

“Towards a New Middle Ages” – Umberto Eco Revisits the Medieval Age

Umberto Eco’s attempt to bring the past into the present or the presentness of past is evident from his essay “Towards a New Middle Ages” wherein he draws an analogy between the present age and the medieval ages. Eco asserts in the essay that the present age follows a line of pattern that could be traced to the middle ages. It is likely the continuation of the mediaeval time with increased specialization that disrupts the inter dependence, gives rise to autonomy which could be disastrous and results into alienation. In the essay, he discusses specifically of the dangers of the present age in relation to the medieval ages. The parallel he draws negates the contingency changes over the period of time and the essay seems an exaggeration sidelining the development happened since then. This exaggeration evolves from the ‘fantasy’ that often considered as highly impossible but hints at the probability. Probability does not render the essay insignificant instead makes it as valuable because the fantasy goes into the critical inquiry into the past and links it to the present and the probable future. With the assistance of fantasy, Umberto Eco reconstructs the history in the present age but his reconstruction is the selective history in order to comment on the present and the future.

 

Umberto Eco: Rethinking History andFiction

 Umberto Eco’s essay – “Towards aNew Middle Ages”-   was published in 1985 in On Signs edited by Marshall Blonsky. Eco revisits the past in this prose. He is medievalist who harks back on the past for his fiction, criticism, theories and other art forms. He believes that the contemporary period is an offshoot of the past; we cannot detach ourselves from the past. The relationship between past and present is not limited to the temporal units, it is permanent. Past and present exist together; they enter into each other territory. “Towards a New Middle Ages” is an essay on medievalism and its revival in the contemporary period.

The prose is important for the study of The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum. Both the texts revisit the middle-ages, with their own vested interests to expose intricate cultural, social, and religious spheres. The common ground between the two texts is the reconstruction of medieval era. The essay “Towards a New Middle Ages” also reconstructs the middle ages. It raises some of the important themes, which we find in the texts like – fragmentation of central authority; emergence of radical groups, insecurity; preservation, secret groups, and production of fake knowledge.

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Playing with Faith of Readers – Umberto Eco is a Cretan

 

 

 

 

In The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco plays the readers understanding of fiction as an human constructed narrative structure. He explains in the preface that the story is based on a manuscript which was given to him by a friend describing the real incident occurred in the fourteenth century.  The reader presumes that the book is a kind of history of fourteenth century, particularly dealing with the incidents of local place. Hence, it is a kind of Paradox like -  Paradox of Cretan Liars wherein Epimenides claims, “All Cretans are Liars.” This statement seems to be poststructuralist as it is self referential and contradicts itself. It has two probable answers and both of them grounds on the assumptions – if the statement is true or the statement is false. The statement asserts its validity and at the same time denies its affirmation since they criticize structuralism on the ground of following a circular chain of signs to draw the meaning, but the point of emphasis is the poststructuralists using the same method to which they reject. Their own meaning is based  on that they criticize (self referential and self contradicting). When we analyze The Paradox of Cretan Liars in the context of the Name of the Rose, we find that Epimenides remark brings the lost manuscript in the domain of both fiction and history. In fact, it raises even more important question on narrativity forming the core of both fiction and history. Epimenides’ statement circumscribes history into the realm of fiction as it is probably a fictive narrative of historiographer and fiction into the domain of history confirming facts. It becomes difficult to mark a boundary between history and fiction as there is no way of knowing whether the presentation of facts by Umbeto Eco to support his argument is true or false. It leaves the reader with the two possibilities and the reader is free to decide whether the historical accounts given by Eco to support his arguments are fictitious historical facts based on fictive narrative or true evidences. The distinction between fiction and history become complex when Eco creates a medieval period; he does not uses “once upon a time” to tell a story instead uses a narration of historiographer. He does not take the reader into the past, creates the past for them in the present. He emphasizes on the presentness of the medieval ages introduces reader as if they were living part of the history. The construction of past in the present might be an imaginative endeavor; a splendid exhibit of human faculty; a new insight into the present and the drafting of past with possible consequences.    

Umberto Eco: Rethinking of History and Fiction (Century Publication)

History and Fiction

 

With the introduction of the manuscript, the writer’s position resembles that indicated by the old Greek philosophical riddle called ‘The Paradox of theCretan Liar.’ The paradox was formulated by Eubulides in the fourth century BCE around the primary statement –”All Cretans are liars.” The statement is self referential and self contradicting. Epimenides is a Cretan, therefore he is a liar and, consequently, his assertion is false. Alexandre Koyre tries to find a solution to the problem with the help of philosophical reasoning. For him, “All Cretans are liar” is a major proposition and “Epimenides is a Cretan” is a minor proposition. Therefore, “All the assertions of Epimenides are false.” But when the last proposition is taken as a major, together with “the assertion ‘all Cretans, etc.’ is an assertion of Epimenides,” entails the conclusion,- the assertion ‘all Cretans, etc.” is false. Koyre concludes –

“Not all the Cretans are liars, i.e., the statements of Cretans are not all and necessarily false. We must conclude from this that there are certain Cretans who speak the truth, i.e., that certain judgments made by Cretans are (or can be) true. However, it does not follow there from that Cretans are always truthful, and that all the judgments of the Cretans are true always.”

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Umberto Eco – Producer of Postmodern Knowledge

UmbertoEco is well known for his postmodern novels and literary theories, deeply delved into the poststructuralist debate of representing an a multiple meanings. Post structuralism hits the very base on which human certainties affix themselves; it calls for reconsideration of what previously taken as real on part of it resemblance to what happened in the past as it depends on evidences in the form of material and historical accounts. Poststructuralists elude the distinction between history and fiction and put the historical details in the realm of fiction. Fiction and history are human construction with the help of signs. It elucidates that signs do not end at one point or do not have a particular ontological or epistemological meaning. They require signs to express their inference and therefore do not give fixity to the meaning. The usage of signs in the history makes the history as fluid and slippery as fiction owing to uncertain meanings of signs.

The linkage between history and fiction in Umberto Eco’s writing emerges from the author’s intended description to inform the reader that the story is inspired from a lost fourteenth century manuscript. The lost manuscript leaves the reader in predicament to assume that is the true depiction of what already scripted in the lost manuscript or the construction of human imagination embedding both history and fiction together to give a perfect account of the human hardships, conditions and other issues linked to medieval period. Since the manuscript Eco discusses is lost, the ascertaining of true meaning of his text and its authenticity about the history raises questions on it. Irrespective of persistent references and claims of the true nature of lost manuscript, the reader exhibits his suspicion on its meaning.

Umberto Eco: Rethinking History and Fiction(Century Publication)

                                                    
                                                         Introduction

 With the emergence of postmodernism, an intense debate on the substitutive nature of history and fiction begins. The debate gains momentum with the evolution of a kind of writing in which history and fiction infiltrate each other. The territorial independence of history and fiction ceases. My concern is the complications that emerge due to the permeation of history by fiction as the demarcations between the two disciplines begin to blur. This problematizes the relationship between history and meaning; reconfigures the representation of factual data; and redefines our conception of authenticity. It also changes our sense of the way in which history produces knowledge. History and knowledge are related to each other on account of information. History compiles factual statistics from archives and substantiates them through causes, reasons and consequences. We concede the authenticity of facts but uncertain of information owing to its presentation and narration.

 

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