From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Mon Sep 01 2003 - 03:44:56 MDT
Anders Sandberg
>The book also figures in (slight spoiler) Umberto Eco's _Name of the
>Rose_, where it is discussed. Most likely Eco knew about the medieval
>rumors and played with them for his story (very well worth reading).
Eco's book is what got me started. I finished it last week, noting a
number of synchronicity events with other novels I've read in the
last few months (for example: J.L. Borges, Labyrinths), and a
longtime interest in comedy / humor theories and stories. I had a
picture in my mind while reading the novel, too, of a medieval
monastery called Maulbronn, in southern Germany, which I visited
when I first moved to Germany in 1998. Apparently the filming of the
movie was there, even though Eco's novel places it in Northern
Italy. The Maulbronn monastery is a very interesting, lovely place
(and they produce a fine wine: "Five Fingers Wine".. ask me
sometime why they named their wine with that name).
Eco's book is *marvelous*. It's about twenty years old now, that is
why I wondering if anything has developed during these last two
decades regarding the Aristotle 'lost' book idea.
(from _Name of the Rose_, pg. 491)
"Perhaps the second book of Aristotle really did teach how to distort
the face of every truth, so that we would not become slaves of our
ghosts. Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make
people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only
truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the
truth."
------------
from _Name of the Rose_, Pg. 473-7
"'But what frightened you in this discussion of laughter? You cannot
eliminate laughter by eliminating the book.'
'No, to be sure. [...] But here, here... the function of laughter is
reversed, it is elevated to art, the doors of the world of the
learned are opened to it, it becomes the object of philosophy, and
of perfidious theology [...] Laughter frees the villein from fear of
the Devil, because in the feast of fools the Devil also appears poor
and foolish, and therefore controllable. But this book could teach
that freeing oneself of the fear of the Devil is wisdom. When he
laughs, as the wine gurgles in his throat, the villein feels he is
master, because he has overturned his position with respect to his
lord; but this book could teach learned men the clever and, from
that moment, illustrious artifices that could legitimatize the
reversal. Then what in the villein is still, fortunately, an
operation of the belly would be transformed into an operation of the
brain. [...] This book could strike the Luciferine spark that would
set a new fire to the whole world, and laughter would be defined as
the new art, unknown even to Prometheus, for canceling fear. [...]'
'You are the Devil.'
'I?'
'Yes. They lied to you. The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the
Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth
that is never seized by doubt. [...]
'This book would have justified the idea that the tongue of the
simple is the vehicle of wisdom. This had to be prevented, which I
have done. You say I am the Devil, but it is not true: I have been
the hand of God.'
--------
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars." - Jorge Luis Borges
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