Looking both ways : Janus, doubling, and intertextuality in Ovid / Kathryn M. DiLorenzo.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Microformat

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

DiLorenzo, Kathryn M.

Contributor:

Farrell, Joseph, advisor.

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--Classical studies.

Classical studies--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--Classical studies.

Classical studies--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

v, 242 pages ; 29 cm

Production:

2001.

Summary:

This dissertation investigates the significance of the god Janus' programmatic presence at the beginnings of three Ovidian poems: the Fasti (where the god himself appears), the Metamorphoses (begun with Chaos, Janus' former identity, F. 1.103), and the Tristia (where Janus' presence is implied by the geminae frontes ("twin faces/ends") of Ovid's book-roll, Tr. 1.1.11). As Janus says, omina principiis... inesse solent ("beginnings are often omens," F. 1.178), and indeed, the similar beginnings of these three "Janus-poems" signal extensive intertextual relationships among them. Janus' unique form and attributes indicate the nature of these intertextual connections. For example, the two-headed Janus, looking in two directions at once, is an apt symbol for literary allusion, in which one text, verbally "glancing" at another, directs the reader to look at two texts simultaneously. In addition, Janus, sharing geminae frontes with both books ( Tr. 1.1.11) and doors (ianuae, F. 1.135), has two epithets: Patulcius ("the Opener," F. 1.129) and Clusius ("the Closer," F. 1.130). Like doors, books are always opened again after they have been closed; thus Janus' form serves as a metaphor for texts' tendencies to remain perpetually open to new meaning. Janus' doubleness also mirrors the nature of intertextual connections, which are moments of doubling. In these three "Janus-poems," Janus and other doubled characters frequently signal that the meanings of episodes in two different poems would be mutually enriched if they were read side by side. Chapter one reads the identification between Janus and Chaos as a commentary on the entanglement of the Fasti and the Metamorphoses. Chapter two identifies the thematization of translation, an act of textual doubling, in the Fasti and the Tristia. Janus, the Roman "translation" of the Greek Chaos, inaugurates this theme. Chapter three finds that several moments of doubling in the Tristia (including a Janus-figure at the entrance to the Black Sea) "reread" the Metamorphoses' doubling story of Narcissus and Echo. The dissertation concludes that moments of doubling within Ovidian poems often serve to mark intertextual connections between Ovidian poems.

Notes:

Adviser: Joseph Farrell.

Thesis (Ph.D. in Classical Studies) -- University of Pennsylvania, 2001.

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

University Microfilms order no.: 3003619.

OCLC:

244971832