Friendship and Poetry: Studies in Danish Neo-Latin Literature

As elsewhere in Northern Europe, Latin literature, prose as well as poetry,—flourished in Denmark in the last half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. In accordance with Renaissance ideals this was a classicizing literature, covering a range of different genres and subjects; ideologically it was firmly based in the Lutheran reformation and decidedly supported the newly strengthened monarchy. Prof. emir. Minna Skafte Jensen was one of the first to explore this field. Ever since the beginning of the 1980s she has been the leading figure within the field of Danish Neo-Latin literature—through her own research, as a leader of research projects, and as a source of inspiration for other scholars. The articles collected here offer sensitive readings with an eye to intertextual allusions as well as to the sociological context.