Eco, Umberto (əmbĕr`tō ĕcō), 1932–, Italian novelist, essayist, and scholar. His first novel, The Name of the Rose (tr. 1983), is a medieval mystery. A pastiche of detective fiction, medieval philosophy, and moral reflection, it encapsulates his semiotic theory, which describes how signs are produced and interpreted in the world. The novel presents clues for the reader to decode, but as the reader grapples with the novel's deeper meanings, the mystery becomes secondary. Eco's other novels include Foucault's Pendulum (tr. 1989), The Island of the Day Before (tr. 1995), Baudolino (tr. 2002), and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (tr. 2005). Among his important theoretical books are A Theory of Semiotics (1976), The Role of the Reader (1979), and The Limits of Interpretation (1990).

Bibliography

See studies by T. Coletti (1988) and M. T. Inge, ed. (1988).

Eco, Umberto

(born Jan. 5, 1932, Alessandria, Italy) Italian critic and novelist. He has taught since 1971 at the University of Bologna. In The Open Work (1962), he suggested that some literature and modern music is fundamentally ambiguous and invites the audience to participate in the interpretive and creative process. He explored other areas of communication and semiotics in A Theory of Semiotics (1976), Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984), and The Limits of Interpretation (1991). His novels include the erudite but best-selling murder mystery The Name of the Rose (1980; film, 1986), Foucault's Pendulum (1988), and The Island of the Day Before (1995).