Janusansiktets potentialitet
en studie mellan erfarenhetsrum och förväntningshorisonter
This essay will discuss the Roman God Janus, as a figure of speech, in four different texts written by Publius Ovidius Naso, Michel de Montaigne, Francis Bacon and Elijah Fenton. The Janus figure could also illustrate the relationship between the past, the present and the future, because of the attributes of looking back and forward, in both space and time, that Janus was said to possess. Reinhard Koselleck's ideas of space of experience and horizon of expectation will be used as an analytical approach, thus creating a dual purpose for this essay. On one hand to understand texts about Janus, which implies an understanding of the changes over time associated with the history of ideas of Janus, and on the other the past's importance in relation to the future, which includes an understanding of Janus via Koselleck's thesis about the change in relationship between experience and expectation.The question formulations are as follows: How has the Janus motive changed over time in the researched texts? How can the literary use of Janus show the changed relationship between the space of experience and the horizon of expectation, and in a wider context between the past and the future? Janus has gone from being a physical presence, as the arcs of the Forum Romanum in ancient Rome, to becoming a tool for authors, one that spans many literary rooms. Janus' linguistic form has consequently changed in the same way as the historical constructs, that previously funneled the collected experience into one expression, in a double-sided form, to mostly contain anticipations and expectations, with an emphasis on the forface side of Janus. Janus' literary form can thus in itself indicate how the relationship between experience and expectation have changed with the modern times.