On Literature [Paperback]

Umberto Eco (Author), Martin McLaughlin (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2006

After the opening essay on the general significance of literature, Eco examines a number of major authors from the Western canon. A stimulating chapter on the poetic qualities of Dante's "Paradiso" is followed by one on the style of the Communist Manifesto. The next three essays centre on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature: one on the French writer Nerval's masterpiece, "Sylvie" (a major influence on Eco and a novella that he translated into Italian), one on Oscar Wilde's love of paradox, and one on Joyce's views on language. The last three pieces deal with the road that leads from Cervantes via Swift to Borges' "Library of Babel", then an essay on Eco's own anxiety about Borges' influence on him, and the volume ends with an article on the enigmatic Italian critic and anthropologist Piero Camporesi. "On Literature" is a provocative and entertaining collection of sprightly essays on the key texts that have shaped Eco, the novelist and critic. This volume will appeal to anyone interested in how new light is shed on old masters by a great contemporary mind.

Editorial Reviews

Review

PRAISE FOR UMBERTO ECO

"One of the most influential thinkers of our time."--"Los Angeles Times"

"Eco combines scholarship with a love of paradox and a quirky, sometimes outrageous, sense of humor."--"The Atlantic Monthly"

From the Back Cover

In this collection of essays and addresses delivered over the course of his illustrious career, Umberto Eco seeks "to understand the chemistry of [his] passion" for the word. Eco's luminous intelligence and encyclopedic knowledge dazzle throughout. And when he reveals his own ambitions and superstitions, his authorial anxieties and fears, one feels like a secret sharer in the garden of literature to which he so often alludes.
Illuminating, accessible, stimulating, this collection exhibits Eco's diversity of interests and depth of knowledge in pieces such as these and many more:
A Reading of the Paradiso
On the Style of The Communist Manifesto
Wilde: Paradox and Aphorism
A Portrait of the Artist as Bachelor
Borges and My Anxiety of Influence
On Symbolism
On Style
The American Myth in Three Anti-American Generations

Umberto Eco is a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna. His collections of essays include Kant and the Platypus, Serendipities, Travels in Hyperreality, and How to Travel with a Salmon. He is also the author of the bestselling novels The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and Baudolino. His most recent novel is The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. He lives in Milan.

Translated from the Italian by Martin McLaughlin

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 334 pages
• Publisher: Vintage Books USA; New edition edition (January 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099453940
• ISBN-13: 978-0099453949
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Umberto Eco (born 5 January 1932) is an Italian novelist, medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, and literary critic.

He is the author of several bestselling novels, The Name of The Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of The Day Before, and Baudolino. His collections of essays include Five Moral Pieces, Kant and the Platypus, Serendipities, Travels In Hyperreality, and How To Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays.

He has also written academic texts and children's books.


Photography (c) Università Reggio Calabria

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars essays on why/what we write & think about books & history, December 12, 2004

By 

A.G. (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Literature (Hardcover)

This book is worth buying for Eco's essay on "The Power of Falsehood" in which he explores the history and impact of the myth of the flat earth, of Prester John's kingdom, and the long and complex background to the lies of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"

If you've read any Eco (or Dante or Borges or Wilde) there is a lot here for you. There is also a striking essay (originally presented at Columbia University in 1980)entitled "The American Myth in Three Anti-American Generations" that focuses on the generation that came of age in Mussolini's Italy in the 1930's and 1940's. The section on the journals on resistance fighter Giaime Pintor -- with extensive selections quoted-- is powerful. The background on origins of European left-wing attitudes toward aspects of America are quite insightful.

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Semiotics Professor on Various Aspects of Literature, January 29, 2005

By 

Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Literature (Hardcover)

This collection of essays and lectures by Umberto Eco and translated by Martin McLaughlin contains Eco's reflections on several aspects of literature, from the (more or less) tangible influence of Borges on the author's own writing to different approaches to literary criticism to how he himself came to write his novels. Though the essays themselves range in subject matter, all contain the underlying currents of Eco's academic forte, semiotics, that difficult-to-define discipline that drives the author's intellect.

The eighteen essays/lectures concentrate on specific authors and works ("A Reading of the Paradiso", "Wilde: Paradox and Aphorism") as well as on more general topics ("On Symbolism", "Intertextual Irony and Levels of Reading"). As you might gather from the titles, this book is not light reading and reflects not only the density of Eco's prose but also of his ideas. Some essays succeed better than others. "Borges and My Anxiety of Influence" is a fascinating, almost conversational glimpse into the workings of Eco's literary mind while his more direct "How I Write" is deadened by self-analysis. "The Power of Falsehood", perhaps more than any of these essays, exposes the obsessions that gave rise to The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and Baudolino; it delves into the marriage of history and false ideas. Unfortunately, the opening piece, "On Some Functions of Literature," seems almost elemental and not deep enough for someone of Eco's academic caliber. Readers of his novels will recognize in many of these essays the driving force behind the fiction. Intellectuals and literary critics especially will want to make their slow, careful way through much of what Eco has to say.

Although I don't agree with some of Eco's premises, I still found this book intriguing, both for its ideas and the way they are presented. Eco knows his material, and his passion for the subject matter can be infectious. Recommended for serious students of literature and semiotics, but not for the casual reader.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must have for students of literature!, December 21, 2005

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Literature (Paperback)

Umberto Eco is most famous in this country for his bestselling novel The Name of the Rose (1980) that was subsequently made into a Hollywood film starring Sean Connery. He is the author of a number other of novels including Foucault's Pendulum (1988), Baudolino (2002), and most recently The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005). First and foremost, however, Eco is a literary theorist and professor of semiotics, the philosophical theory of signs and symbols.

On Literature is a collection of essays and addresses given over the course of his career. More general essays like "On Style" and "On Symbolism" are mixed with those focused on Dante, Wilde, and The Communist Manifesto. Other essays--most notably "Borges and My Anxiety of Influence," "How I Write," and "The Power of Falsehood"-- illuminate Eco's own literary work in different ways.

A quick look at the table of contents is enough to show that despite being a collection of essays, this is a serious work of literary criticism. The book is being billed as "illuminating, accessible, [and] stimulating" (back cover text). It is illuminating and stimulating, but in all honestly it is a bit dense for general consumption. The essays on specific authors and texts are brilliant, but they will be best enjoyed by people who have actually read the texts Eco is discussing.

Because I've spent a lot of time dealing with James Joyce lately, I appreciated "A Portrait of the Artist as Bachelor," an essay in which Eco shows the seeds of Joyce's later literary work in young Jim's undergraduate writings.

"The American Myth in Three Anti-American Generations" is another great find. Originally written as a paper for a conference at Columbia University, it discusses the roots of the Italian image of America beginning with the generation that came to age in the 1930s.

On Literature is not an easy read, but if you have time and interest you will find that Eco's latest collection of essays is full of passion and insight.

Armchair Interviews says: Although not recommended for the casual reader, On Literature is a must-have for students of literature.