Contrafaction in literature denotes a procedure in which constitutive elements of an original are used to formulate a new version that may run contrary to the spirit of the original. The term derives from the Late Latin contrafacere (“to make against”), and is related to “counterfeit” (i.e. “forge”) and the German Konterfei (“likeness”), konterfeien (“to depict,” equivalent to Latin delineare; Grimm, DWB 2, 635, 65), and Abconterfeter (“painter”) [9. 11–21]. In the stricter sense of a genre term, contrafaction is a neolo…