Nad Wisłą, nad Nilem--

The subject and the scope of this work is determined by its title: Legacy of the Ancient Egypt in Polish Literature (until 1914). The Introduction specifies the understanding of this issue and presents the state of research (also in the context of the European literature). The first part presents the collection of texts until the end of the eighteenth century and the sources of inspiration: biblical and apocryphal circle, intermediary role of Greek and Roman writing, the influence of “pseudo-Egyptian” tradition on the borderline of literature and iconology (“emblems”), traveling and museum-piece collecting. The supplement to it is the outline of the presence of Ancient Egypt in other aspects of the Old Polish culture (art and architecture) and its reception in the scientific and encyclopedic works. In the second part, spanning the nineteenth-century literature the starting point is the review of characteristic phenomena which at the beginning of the century contributed to the substantial receptional revision, the key to which was a “discovery” of the ancient Egypt for science and European culture (Napoleon Bonaparte’s expedition). The author, taking into account different contexts: romantic “fashion” for Orient, development of scientific Egyptology or increased access to popular knowledge, analizes in the first place travel-writing and other literature genres dealing with the consequences of traveling as well as the influence of Ancient Egypt legacy on works of the writers who had never gone there, the issue of the Egyptology development as a source of literary inspirations in narrative works and also the use of motifs connected with the Ancient Egypt in the poetry of the period of the Young Poland movement.