One abundantly clear attribute each of the novels share, is their reliance on allusion and irony throughout the texts. Umberto Eco describes the place of irony and humor in postmodern works of literature brilliantly, in the postscript of The Name of the Rose, when he writes, “The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently” (Eco 570). This means that a key attribute of postmodern literature is to comment without a perspective of innocence but one with an eye for irony, which is evident in so many areas of the book, such as the treatment of the medieval theocracy, the sciences of the day, and the sources of meaning in the fourteenth century. This is particularly evident with the deeply embedded allusion concerning the names of the novel’s main protagonist. William of Baskerville is clearly a reference to the detective and protagonist of The Hound of the
One abundantly clear attribute each of the novels share, is their reliance on allusion and irony throughout the texts. Umberto Eco describes the place of irony and humor in postmodern works of literature brilliantly, in the postscript of The Name of the Rose, when he writes, “The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently” (Eco 570). This means that a key attribute of postmodern literature is to comment without a perspective of innocence but one with an eye for irony, which is evident in so many areas of the book, such as the treatment of the medieval theocracy, the sciences of the day, and the sources of meaning in the fourteenth century. This is particularly evident with the deeply embedded allusion concerning the names of the novel’s main protagonist. William of Baskerville is clearly a reference to the detective and protagonist of The Hound of the