This study looks closely at the changes taking place in Polish literary scholarship at the turn of the century, and focuses on the work of the founder of Polish Formalism, Kazimierz Woycicki and the other main theoreticians and practitioners of this School. While presenting a comparative and contrasting approach to Polish and Russian Formalism, the study concentrates on how the ideas of the Russian Formalists were accepted and applied by the Polish School, which modified and transcended them. Special attention is paid to Woycicki's original definition of the subject of literary study. The two...