Polemika Krytycznoliteracka w Polsce series. Between case study and history of literature

Abstract

The history of literature is not only the history of literary texts, but also the history of critical-literary disputes and discussions, in which – following Dilthey’s conception – the meanings and interpretations of literary works are forged, and sequences of evolving aesthetics, poetological projects, and stylistic tensions take shape. This article presents the aims and outcomes of the research project Critical Literary Polemics in Poland: Between Case Study and Literary History. Critical Editions, conducted by a nationwide group of scholars at the Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology in Poznań between 2017 and 2024. The project involved collecting, editing, and critically studying primary sources and publishing a series of monographic volumes devoted to individual polemics. As a result, unique corpora of texts – never before reconstructed in this form – were assembled, offering readers the opportunity to trace the dialogic nature of the exchanges that constitute each dispute. The monographs gathered in the series (thirty-six volumes to date) form a hypothetical “grand narrative” of the history of critical literary polemics in Poland. In doing so, they contribute to the broader story of one of the key dimensions of Polish literary and cultural life. This narrative includes episodes reaching back to the eighteenth century and continues through the nineteenth, twentieth, and into the early decades of the twenty-first century, thus encompassing a significant portion of the history of Polish literature.