Renæssanceforum 10

		Renæssanceforum 10 • 2016 Florian Schaffenrath Anti-mirrors of Princes in Neo-Latin Habsburg Novels close window

		This paper deals with the literary feature of 'negative mirrors of princes' in Neo-Latin novels from the Habsburg Empire. After a general clarification of the term 'anti-mirror of princes', we discuss these passages in detail: an essential, significant feature of the Habsburg novels is their propagation of a supranational identity capable of uniting different peoples for the ruling dynasty. They succeeded in this not only by using Latin, but with a series of different literary techniques, e.g. anti-mirrors of princes, as often the exact opposite of a good ruler of an entire empire is depicted in these antitheses.