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"...it just says 'M'..."

S a t u r d a y, F e b r u a r y 2 0 , 2 0 1 6

A Swaying and Fluttering Form: Foucaults

Heterotopias in Ecos The Name of the Rose
In honour of Umberto Eco upon his death, here is a paper I originally presented at the
CISPCR Symposium in 2013. Some of the material was modified and applied to Bowie,
and appears in my book on Bowie, published by McFarland and Company in 2015.
Michel Foucault writes of certain spaces that suspect, neutralize, or invert the set of
relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect. (Foucault 24) He calls such
spaces heterotopias. For Adso, the narrator-protagonist in Umberto Ecos best-selling novel,
The Name of the Rose, the biblical text of the Song of Songs acts as a sort of heterotopia, a
mirror which reflects (and distorts) his position; it exerts a sort of counteraction on the
position. To clarify, there are moments in the novel where Adsos heterosexuality, a subject
position assumed by his piety, by his position in monastic life in the early part of the second
millennium, is suspect: even today my old age is stirred ... when my eyes ... happen to
linger on the beardless face of a novice, pure and fresh as a maidens. (Eco 159) At another
moment, Adso reflects on an incident of heterosexual impropriety, and uses the text of the
Song of Songs in order to deflect, perhaps, suggestions of sexual impropriety in the text.
None of this is sure, though; in fact, the novel as a whole seems to enact a sort of
heterotopic space. It is what could, what might, but what is not (necessarily).
An article, Of Other Spaces, was published in 1986, a translation of Michel Foucaults
lecture, Des Espaces Autres, given in March 1967. In the english translation by Jay
Miskowiec, Foucault describes a sort of history of space. Of note, he suggests that the
actual space of the Middle Ages constitutes what he calls a space of emplacement: a
hierarchic ensemble of places: sacred places and profane places; protected places and open,
exposed places; urban places and rural places (all these concern the real life of men). (22)
This is an important observation considering the setting for Ecos novel, that of a monastery
in the fourteenth-century. For Foucault, the Middle Ages demonstrated this complete
hierarchy, this opposition, this intersection of places in a particularly marked and
compelling way. The Middle Ages was an age in which one was strongly placed in a certain
space, without possibility for mobility. Each space, also, was marked as what it was, without
the possibility of change; categorization of space, and of its occupants, was fixed. As in
other areas of Foucaults study, the study of space reveals power relations.

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To only slightly oversimplify, Foucault suggests that the spaces that one lives in that define
ones life are also defined by society, and other power holders and discourse creators and
reinforcers. The spaces or sites in which one lives are related to each other: these spaces
are through which order is established in society. Foucault states, though, that such
mundane sites are not of ultimate interest to him:
I am interested in certain ones that have the curious property of being in
relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or
invert the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect.
These spaces, as it were, which are linked with all the others, which however
contradict all the other sites, are of two main types. (24)
The types to which Foucault refers are utopia and heterotopia. For Foucault, then,
utopia is unreal, a presentation of society in a perfected form, or else society turned
upside down, but in any case . . . fundamentally unreal spaces. Heterotopias, on the other

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hand, are real spaces: these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they
reflect and speak about. Between the utopia, which is unreal, and the heterotopia, which
is real, is what Foucault calls the mirror. He seems to conflate the two ideas as well: while
the heterotopia is reflected or mediated by the mirror, the mirror becomes a sort of
heterotopia in itself:
it makes this place that I occupy at the moment when I look at myself in the
glass at once absolutely real, connected with all the spaces that surrounds it,
and absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this
virtual point which is over there. (24)
The mirror exists in the real world, and thus reflects the unreal idea of utopia in a solid
object. Such ideas are compelling if one considers the role of Ecos own novelthe actual,
perhaps physical, idea, or concept, or narrativeas heterotopia: The heterotopia is capable
of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves
incompatible. (25) For a moment, consider the actual novel, the very narrative that
constitutes the reading text. This is a single space of heterotopia, but one can continue the
chain. The Song of Songs in the novel acts as heterotopia, the mirror in which Adso sees
himself acts as heterotopia, and, ultimately, the story of the kitchen girl acts as heterotopia.
Foucault discusses various principles of heterotopia; one of his principles suggests that
Heterotopias always presuppose a system of opening and closing that both isolates them
and makes them penetrable. (26) Haft, White and White, in their massive work, The Key to
the Name of the Rose, suggest that the Middle Ages, that space that Foucault calls a space
of emplacement, is an historical open work. (Haft, White and White 23) That period has
no definitive opening or closing, which works to make the novel itself both isolated, in
that its temporal definition is difficult to immediately ascertain (especially for the
contemporary reader), but this very fact also makes it penetrable. It is not hard to presume
that many readers would need to be reminded of the actual historical time period of the
novel; while the abstract Middle Ages is obviously the temporal setting of the novel, its
importance is not necessarily the key to understanding the narrative. Certainly
understanding the key elements of the historical background of the novel helps to further
flesh out the story, a fact which is made clear by the popularity of such books as The Key to
the Name of the Rose, Theresa Colettis Naming the Rose from 1988, as well as Ecos own,
rather substantial, Postscript to the Name of the Rose, from 1983. But such knowledge is not
required in order to begin to read the book. The difficulty for the reader begins, though,
with the first introduction of language other than the text of the story; whether we consider
the source Italian or the translated English, some of the first words the reader encounters
are in French. As the reader continues her journey in the story, she encounters Latin,
French, Italian, and the patois of all three as manifest in the speech of the character
Salvatore. Rocco Capozzi, in his study of the unlimited intertextuality of the novel, writes,
Ecos novel is a perfect example of conscious (and unconscious)
hybridization; it is a text in which many other texts merge, fuse, collide,
intersect, speak to, and illuminate, one anothereach with its own language
and ideologue. The Rose, succinctly put, is a skillfull (con)structure of an
intentionally ambiguous, polyvalent, and self-reflexive novel intended to
generate multiple meanings. Moreover, it is a novel which wishes to be: an
intersection of textual traces and textures; a dialogue with many texts;
and a literary text generated through the endless process of writing and
reading, re-writing and re-reading, etc. (Capozzi 413)
Such discussions of the novel certainly evoke at least the reflection of utopia in the form of
heterotopia.
The Song of Songs exists as heterotopia within the novel as well. Foucault states, There are
others [that is, other heterotopias] . . . that seem to be pure and simple openings, but that
generally hide curious exclusions. (Foucault 26) It might be that the Song of Songs acts as
an opening that hides the exclusion that is homosexuality. Adso uses the words of the
Song of Songs to describe his liaison with the kitchen girl because, first of all, the
experience did not occur, and secondly, because he is unable to describe the experience,
having never experienced such a liaison. The Song of Songs, then, is a kind of entry door
as Foucault seems to describe it. In his article, Foucault describes what he calls famous
bedrooms that existed in South America, as containing an entry door that did not lead to

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the central chambers in which the family lived, but rather to an open bedroom in which a
stranger was allowed to stay, but only for a time, that is, for the evening. Foucault makes a
compelling observation: he suggests that these South American bedrooms are akin to the
famous American hotel rooms in which illicit sex is both absolutely sheltered and
absolutely hidden, kept isolated without however being allowed into the open. (26-27) For
Adso, the biblical text works as a kind of entry door or open room: it allows Adso entry
but only for a time. It works for him to keep the act isolated or shelteredthe language of
the biblical text is not his own text, and thus, shelters him from needing to experience the
actual act in realityand it works for him to keep the act absolutely hiddenhe uses the
biblical text to mask what has actually happened, by displacing the more immoral
experience of homosexuality with the liaison with the kitchen girl, through the lens of the
biblical text. As heterotopia, though, the text functions in another way, as an actual, real,
example of utopic love, something that is reflected in the text of the novel, while being
ignored in the narrative of the novel.
The mirror itself, which Adso encounters in the library, is also a heterotopia. Adsos first
experience of the mirror is described as follows: Holding the lamp in front of me, I
ventured into the next rooms. A giant of threatening dimensions, a swaying and fluttering
form came toward me, like a ghost. For Adso, the mirror is something that, as William
explains, reflects your image, enlarged and distorted. Adso continues to describe the
experience: I saw our two images, grotesquely misshapen, changing form and height as we
moved closer or stepped back. (Eco 196) Recall Foucaults description of those spaces that
are not the spaces which define the lives of those in society, but rather those spaces that
convey something else: they suspect, neutralize, or invert the set of relations that they
happen to designate, mirror, or reflect. (Foucault 24) In this case, the actual mirror, and its
reflection, seems to signify this space, a kind of space of possibility, a possibility with
threatening dimensions, a swaying and fluttering form, that is, the form of Adsos
fabrication, a sort of reflection of himself that is misshapen. It is a true reflection, yet it is
distorted; it is a representation of Adsos experience of pleasure, but an encounter with
Ubertino, which occurs directly before his supposed encounter with the kitchen girl, as
described in the narrative.
Another heterotopia is the story of the liaison with the kitchen girl itself. It functions as
many of the heterotopia discusses thus far function. It is a heterotopia which neutralizes,
which hides curious exclusions, to use Foucaults terms. Foucault also suggests, though,
that heterotopias are able to juxtapose several sites that are in themselves incompatible.
Furthermore, these are heterotopias of deviation, what Foucault describes as those in
which individuals whose behavior is deviant in relation to the required mean or norm are
placed. (25) Certainly Adsos behaviour is deviant if one considers the liasion with the
kitchen girl, and so it seems to function well, then, as a heterotopia. As such, it is a space of
experience, where a figure without (prior) experience can express the experience of
sexuality, in a space which, in such a way, is utopic, a space of expression of experience. It
is a distorted reflection of the actual event between Adso and Ubertino, at the very least an
example of sexually charged homosocial behaviour.
The image most closely associated with the heterotopia is a boat, an item at its most
comfortable (for lack of a better word) on the sea, in an unfixed position, always swaying to
and fro. Foucault states, the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that
exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of
the sea. This is a fascinating idea that might be applied to the novel of The Name of the
Rose itself. The polysemic nature of the text, the labyrinthian levels and layers of meaning,
those spaces of emplacement that are also juxtaposed into sorts of networks of manifest
utopia, point to a kind of unfixed text, a space which becomes, as Foucault suggests, the
greatest reserve of the imagination. If the novel presents chains of heterotopia, then it also
presents a real example of the ideal utopia. Without that greatest reserve of the
imagination which characterizes the novel, Foucault continues, dreams dry up . . . and the
police take the place of the pirates.
Sources:
Capozzi, Rocco. Palimpsests and Laughter: The Dialogical Pleasure of Unlimited
Intertextuality in The Name of the Rose. Italica 66:4 (Winter 1989). 412-428.

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Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. Translated by William Weaver. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf. 2006.
Foucault, Michel. Of Other Spaces. Translated by Jay Miskowiec. Diacritics 16:1 (Spring
1986). 22-27.
Haft, Adele J., Jane G. White and Robert J. White, The Key to the Name of the Rose. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1998.
Posted by Nicholas Greco at 10:44 AM

1 comment:
NKLNOMETRE DENEY said...
thanks for it. Cool! inklinometre deneyi
9:47 AM
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