Eco's Postscript is also a manifesto proclaiming the authority of serious historical fiction: the characters in a historical novel may not appear in encyclopedias, he notes, but everything they do could only occur in that time and place. ... The fundamental tension in the novel is between those, like the inquisitor Bernardo Gui, Jorge de Burgos, Ubertino of Casale, or Adso in old age and that rare medieval-postmodern William who has abandoned his role of inquisitor, refusing to discriminate between martyr and heretic, for example. ...

• Word Count: 4697
• Approx Pages: 19
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate