Endless lists

The philosopher, novelist, and researcher in the Middle Ages; Umberto Eco, dates the list, or rather, the Western obsession with it, taking from the ship catalog in Homer’s Iliad as the starting point, and then moving on to medieval literature, ending with the modern and post-modern eras. He examines in this book the phenomenon of collection, creating lists, encyclopedias, and classification across ages, going so far as to say that this approach to things runs through Western cultural history as a whole, and it can be said that there is an eternal return to the subject of the list, and an obsession with it, which mark that history with their sign. Thus, Eco engages in a critical historical effort, observing human effort in attempting to tame multiplicity, and possess it within lists of things, places, wonders, collections, and treasures. Eco talks about the reason that prompted him to write this book, saying: When the Louvre management invited me to organize, throughout November 2009, a series of conferences, exhibitions, public reading sessions, musical events, film screenings, and other similar activities, all related to a topic I chose myself, I did not hesitate for a moment, and immediately proposed the topic of “the list.” If a person were to read my novels, they would find them full of lists, and I have embodied the roots of this obsession in two materials I studied as a young man; they are medieval texts and the works of James Joyce.