ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Ludvig Holberg's authorial personae, the images of himself-as-author that Holberg projected in his writings. Personae are 'ideal-typical models' that 'have to be applied, developed, and refined in every individual situation'. The chapter shows Holberg had in a recent work described moralizing as the common thread running through his literary production, and defined most of his works as different varieties or genres of moral philosophy. It argues that Holberg's approach to the personae was in large part determined by the public reactions to his writings, as well as the boundaries set by political and institutional factors such as censorship and anti-libel legislation in eighteenth-century Denmark-Norway. Holberg started out his career as an author writing in what he would himself later describe as honourable genres, history and jurisprudence. As a satirist, Holberg therefore balanced on the fine line between illegality and legality, between respectability and scandal, and he cultivated a moralist persona as a defence against potential detractors.
