to Mr. Eco’s use of the forms of the MiddlenAges and the Renaissance.nMr. Eco’s narrator, Adso, is a participantnin the events that he describes,nwhich is another characteristic of thenearly Italian tales and novellas. Aboutnthe authors of these works Ms. Smarrnnotes, “They seem to be aware of freezingnonto paper the previously variablenflow of narration and to be trying to capturenin this translation from one mediumnto another some of the original feeling ofnfluidity.” Throughout The Name of thenRose there are instances when Adso is atna loss for words and when he starts tonmake a digression that would be naturalnfor an oral telling, but which he realizesnsubverts the written linearity that he isntrying to achieve. The modem novel is,nof course, the progeny of the novellanMs. Smarr points out that there are twonfecets to the novella: Fiction, unreal, perhapsnfabulous tales is one aspect. Ms.nSmarr says that novella also “meantn’news’ and as such could be used to describen… recent events.” We Name ofnthe Rose is replete with reports aboutnthe events that took place in the earlynl4th century with regard to the animositynthat existed between Pope John XXIInand the Franciscans; for a contemporarynof Adso’s, the novel would be a chroniclenof current events.nA. move from the aspects of form toncontent also shows that The Name of thenRose is a child of the earlier works (in angenealogical sense, that is). Ms. Smarrnsays, “Renaissance novellas are not onlynfiiU of illicit love affafrs and clerical scandals,nthey show an immense interest innscatological humor and pranksterism.”nForemost in The Name of the Rose arenclerical scandals. It is a tale of six deathsn—^murders, perhaps—^that occur in anmonastery. Illicit love affairs, it seems,nare a motive. The scatology isn’t necessarilynfiinny, but it is there. Only pranksterismnseems absent, unless one definesna prankster as one who upsets the establishednorder, in which case the criminalnis a notorious prankster, as the consequencesnof his actions certainly destroynthe order.nIn Saving the Text: Literature/Derrida/Philosophyn0ohns Hopkins UniversitynPress: Baltimore, 1981), GeoflS-eynH. Hartman writes, “There is, it seems,nno knowledge except in the form of antext—of ecriture—and that is deviousnand dissolving, very unabsolute, as itnleads always to other texts and furthernwritings.” Or, as one of Mr. Eco’s charactersnputs it, “Often books speak of othernbooks,” which causes another to think:n”it is as if they spoke among themselves.”nIf The Name of the Rose is taken up andneven a partial efibrt is made to deconstructnit, to identify the fragments andnthe influences that pervade it, then mynact of writing would be endless: not onlynwould it be necessary to tag those objectsnwhich are Mr. Eco’s, but, as it is annopen work, those that are my own. AlreadynI have cited Boccaccio and Bandello.nPerhaps Sacchetti, Sercambi, Salerno,nand many others could be added. But letnme try to spot the beams and leave thenmotes.ny he Name of the Rose is a detectivenstory. Crimes are committed and/ornbodies are discovered in such a way thatnthe agent seems to be using the Apocalypsenas a guide. Think of Agatha Christie.nAlthough the monastery is in Italy, thennn”detective” is an Englishman, a very rationalnman, a student of Roger Bacon (“Itnis the intention of philosophy to worknout the natures and properties of things”)nand a friend of William of Occam. Thendetective is assisted by an amanuensisnwho later writes the events down. Thendetective’s name is William of Baskerville.nThink of Conan Doyle. While itnmight seem outrageous to bring Christienand Doyle to bear on the work, it isn’tnnecessarily so: chapter six of The Role ofnthe Reader is entitled “Narrative Structuresnin [Ian] Fleming.” Various accidentsnthat bring illumination to the narratornbring Robert Louis Stevenson to mind.nVery copious descriptions of the layoutnof the environment seem to mark the influencenof Robbe-Grillet.nFinally, there is a writer who looms innand above the text of The Name of thenRose, just as he does in and above postmodemnliterature. First, clues. Benedictinenmonasteries in the Middle Ages werencenters of knowledge; they containednbooks and manuscripts that the monksnlaboriously copied and illuminated. Thenmonastery in question in The Name ofnthe Rose has a massive library. About itnand the way that it is mn, the abbot says:n’The library was laid out on a plannwhich has remained obscure to ailnover the centuries Only the librariannhas received the secret, from thenlibrarian who preceded him, and hencommunicates it, while still alive, tonthe assistant librarian, so that deathnwill not take him by surprise and robnthe community of that knowledge. Andnthe secret seals the lips of both men.nOnly the librarian has, in addition tonthat knowledge, the right to moventhrough the labyrinth of the books, henalone knows where to find them andnwhere to replace them, he alone is responsiblenfor their safekeeping.’nOutside of Adso’s frame, but within thenconfines of the covers of The Name ofnthe Rose, there is an introduction, or explanation,nby someone who can be designatednMr. Echo. He describes, vsathnmeticulous detail, how he came upon an19th-century edition of a book that wasn11nJanuary 1984n