This book aims to present a general picture of the development of Polish
literature, from its beginnings in the Middle Ages to the end of the Second
World War, as seen against a cultural background which includes im-
portant historical and political events, the life of society, intellectual
trends, education, and the arts. The main puropse of the book is to serve
students and in part scholars not only in Polish, but also in the other
Slavic literatures and in comparative literature. Since the study of Polish
on the graduate level includes literature in the proper sense, social history,
and culture, and since many literary historians are interested in cultural
problems, it seemed desirable to give them at least general information
about these subjects. This was done for purely didactic reasons, although
not in accordance with the author's theoretical attitude concerning the
autonomous character of literature and its development according to its
own specific and to a large extent independent 'laws'. This is also the
reason why the term 'literature' has been conceived, for the purpose of
this book, in the broader sense, including not only poets, novelists, and
dramatists, but also political, social, and moral writers, as well as his-
torians and literary critics.

However, literary works in the strict sense are treated mostly from the
literary point of view, and the choice of authors is based on their artistic
significance and achievements. Literature, too, constitutes the bulk of the
book, while historical and cultural developments are treated less
thoroughly.

The present English version is by no means a simple translation of the
author's Literatura polska na tle rozwoju kultury ('Polish Literature and
its Cultural Background') published in New York by Roy Publishers in
1945. On the contrary, it is a thoroughly reworked and revised version
of the Polish original adapted to the new purpose of the book and its
new readers. Among other things, it is shorter, contains fewer excerpts
and quotations from Polish (unavailable in English translation) and omits
that material which would appear to be of little interest to the foreign
reader. On the other hand, the English version is provided with more of

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