Abstrakt
This chapter confronts Mathesius's specific methodology and findings with the propositions voiced in the more theoretical statements on the nature of literary criticism, and in his linguistic works. It also searches for possible continuities between Mathesius's propositions on the nature of a literary work of art and the much more refined theoretical positions developed by Wellek and Mukařovský (e.g., the structural unity of the work of art as a basis of its evaluation, or the concept of art as semiotic fact).