ABSTRACT
The Danish word Forfatter (author) comes from the German Verfasser.1 Forfatterskab refers in Danish primarily to the quality, property, or state of being an author, customarily in the sense of a producer of written works. In its secondary sense, it refers to a body of works produced by an author or authors, ascribable in a literary if not also a legal sense exclusively to them. In this sense, Forfatterskab is used synonymously with the compound, Forfattervirksomhed (or, in Kierkegaard, Forfatter-Virksomhed). Thus, “authorship” can refer both to that property, quality, or activity which makes an individual an author, and to the body of works produced by that individual insofar as he or she is an author.2
