Just finished Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, and there are a number of passages in latin that I hope aren’t important. But, the last line:
stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus
has got to be significant. So what does it mean? And for those who have read the book, what is the significance of the title?
I just started reading this book. I’ve Googled everything I’ve run across that I couldn’t puzzle out satisfactorily on my own, and always got answers that made sense. I Googled the quotation in question, and it means essentially, “The rose stays fresh in its name; we have only its name.”
I also turned up the postcript by Eco that shows up in some editions. The postcript suggests that the title has to do with the nature of language: its ability to speak of the nature of the rose, but not to become the rose. The rose fades, dies. All that we to remember the rose is its name, if the rose existed in the first place. Compare this to the nature of literature, especially to what we are led to understand about this book. In the prologue-y bit, Eco leads us to believe that he translated this from a manuscript left by a 19th century historian, who translated it himself from the Latin. The only evidence we have of this is the book. We don’t have Adso to question – we don’t even have the historian to question. All we have are the words in the book. Not the rose. We only have its name.
However, I also ran across this. The second entry talks about the poem that the quote originally comes from, and how the quote is probably a transcription error. The reading that makes sense is actually “stat roma,” referring to Rome, not a rose at all. That adds another layer to the question of the nature of language and its ability to both communicate and miscommunicate, the mutability of meaning with a single letter change.
It goes too, I think, to the meaning of meaning, to definition. I’m curious to how this will apply to the role of women in the novel: the sacred Virgin and the profane girl. Both women, but how are they defined? How are the other characters defined by their relationships to language? To sex? To their sex/gender? Their sexuality? To the different definitions of their roles/selves in society, both the large world and the more limited one of the monastery? By the different religious orders? How do their perceptions (definitions) of the world flavor/color their actions? How do those perceptions color the conclusions they draw about the events in the novel?
I’m playing fast and loose with language myself here. Sorry if I’ve led you into a quagmire.
Thank you for the link, Miss Purl McKnittington. And the last hexameter does indeed make sense given the rest of the book and especially the events of the final chapter (which I won’t spoil, but it’s a page-turner so I’m sure you’ll get there soon!). Also makes sense given that Eco’s a semiologist…
Now if only I could have translated the rest of the latin passages. I’m sure they weren’t *too *important, but it makes me feel woefully ignorant when characters just start conversing in Latin and then switch back mid-sentence into English and I don’t know what’s going on, i. e.
"He raised his eyes to Heaven and said, as if praying, “Quorum primus seraphico calculo purgatus et ardore celico inflammatus totum incendere videbatur. Secundus vero verbo predicationis fecundus super mundi tenebras clarius radiavit… Yes, these were the promises: the Angelic Pope must come.”
which they do like every other page. But it makes me feel smart that I’m reading latin, even if I have no idea what it means. So thanks again!
You might find this interesting, then, brett3570. It’s a study guide for a college course that uses The Name of the Rose. I haven’t looked through it very thoroughly yet, but it might help.
And you’re welcome.