Individual and Collective Memory in the Novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco

Abstract

In this paper, the authors discuss how individual memory and collective memory, according to the operative concepts of Maurice Halbwachs (1990), and based on the work of authors such as Henri Bergson (1999 [1896]) and Paul Ricoeur (2007), are addressed in The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005), by Italian writer Umberto Eco. The authors emphasise how the protagonist’s individual memory is tied to the search for his identity, while the collective memory focuses on the Second World War and the immediate post-war period in Italy. Umberto Eco uses commercials, photos, drawings, comic books and other materials to compose a large mosaic of that period, showing how these cultural elements affected the memories of the people who lived through it. In the end, the authors note how imagination intrudes on both types of memory, modifying them and giving greater solidity and authenticity to the main character’s recollections, and how the advent of the internet and artificial intelligence is perhaps leading to the emergence of a new type of memory in post-modern times.