In an important paper from 2007, Toon Van Hal discussed the history of Neo-Latin research and its methods, or lack of them. Among other possible tools he mentioned the emic/etic distinction, introduced by Kenneth L. Pike in 1954, and in use among linguists and anthropologists. The emic/etic approach insists on the distinction between the two and demands that researchers are conscious of their own procedures. To a modern reader Neo-Latin poetry may seem just as strange as any foreign culture. An important factor in this strangeness is the overwhelming admiration for the ancients manifesting itself in a variety of intertextual devices of which seven are discussed here with examples from Danish Latin poetry 1552–1615. Seen with an emic or an etic eye different aspects of this highly sophisticated literature are revealed, and the author reflects a little on her own approach.