A Semiotic Analysis of The Name of the Rose

Abstract

Umberto Eco is an eminent figure in both literature and semiotics. The dense and complicated plots, themes, and allusions of his novels are only a match for his opaque and rigorous theoretical work. In this project Umberto Eco’s first novel, The Name of the Rose, will be analyzed using the semiotic theories featured in his 1975 book A Theory of Semiotics. In reading both his fiction and his theory, the latter being quite dense and difficult to parse, it can be seen that instead of his theory illuminating the understanding of his novel, instead the novel illuminates the complex messaging of his theories, in much the same way that a moral lesson needs a story to be easily understood. Topics covered in this essay include abduction, unlimited semiosis, linguistics, hyperrealism, and intertextuality. Ferdinand de Saussure, Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson are some of the theorists whose theories are incorporated into the essay.