Sperling igen – en replik

Resumé

The reply discusses three points in relation to Marita Akhøj Nielsen and Lene Schøsler’s restatement (above pp. 27-61) of their position on the genesis and addressee of Leonora Christina’s French autobiography. First it points out that Akhøj Nielsen and Schøsler have not adequately explananed the puzzling differences between Leonora Christina’s French autobiography and Sperling’s Latin life of her. These are better accounted for by the author’s hypotheses that Sperling’s Latin life is the fruit of a series of interviews around 1690 and that the differences are not the result of sloppy editing on the part of Sperling but of slips of memory on the part of Leonora Christina. Second it advances new evidence that the French autobiography did not enter Professor Reitzer’s library as one of several Sperling manuscripts. Third it categorizes the French autobiography as prison literature rather than a vindication and hence argues against the hypothesis that Sperling distributed it among friends of the
Ulfeldt couple abroad.