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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