Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco (January 5, 1932 – February 19, 2016)
He was an Italian professor whose fields of expertise spanned the entire humanities, including semiotics, philology, linguistics, philosophy, aesthetics, architecture, criticism, history, and anthropology.
He received a doctorate (Laurea) from the University of Turin's Faculty of Letters with a dissertation on the aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas. He held approximately 40 honorary doctorates and was reportedly fluent in eight foreign languages in addition to his native Italian. Furthermore, until the 1980s, he possessed an extraordinary memory, knowing the location of every book in the library of the University of Bologna, where he taught. His ability to recall the content of books he had read once suggests he possessed an exceptional memory related to books.
He was also the honorary president of the Italian James Joyce Society, editor of the semiotics journal Versus, a visiting professor at Columbia University and Yale University, a professor at the University of Bologna, and the director of the Italian Institute for Humanities Research. He lectured at the Collège de France, Harvard University, Cambridge University, and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He was the honorary president of the International Association for Semiotic Studies and received the Legion of Honour. The aforementioned accomplishments represent only a fraction of his extensive career.
Although he was a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, he retired at the age of 75 in 2007. Following his retirement, he continued his writing career, exploring the boundaries between theory and practice in the realms of aesthetics, semiotics, literature, essays, and cultural criticism.
He passed away on February 19, 2016, at his home after a long battle with cancer. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer, a type of cancer with a high mortality rate. His family reportedly announced his passing to La Repubblica. He was 84 years old. His funeral was held in Milan on February 23, 2016, attracting hundreds of mourners who came to pay their respects to the leading figure in the humanities.
○ Creative writers must fundamentally respect the readers of their books. This is because, in a sense, they have already cast their writing out into the world, like a message in a bottle tossed into the sea.
○ A truly good book is one that offers new interpretations even after being read two or three times.
○ True heroes are always born out of mistakes. They, like everyone else, dream of being honest cowards.
○ True knowledge is not merely knowing what one should know and what one can know, but also knowing what one cannot know and what one should not know.
○ Poetry is not a matter of emotion but a matter of language. It is language that creates emotion.
○ Like wind ignites fire, absence summons love. The wind extinguishes small flames and fans large ones.
○ The reason why I write is not clear to me. Aside from the fact that I've been writing since some point and the belief that I will continue to write forever, the reason I write, which I cannot express in words.
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