The paper (the nature of which is clearly recapitulatory) has been constructed in the simplest possible manner – as an enumeration of examples with commentary. As the author reviews the material, following a specifi c typology, he stresses the frequency of appearance of two motifs in Polish literature of successive social and cultural groups. In part one, he explores the most important aspects of the child as a literary protagonist: the world of children’s experiences, thoughts and dreams; the specifi c language of children; their place within society and their roles. All the descriptive and exegetic efforts are to reveal the functioning of a model, thus becoming in fact an attempt to discover the rules and principles that govern the presented set of facts. Similarly in part two, in addition to a diachronic presentation of examples regarded as typical (though deliberately reduced in number), the author introduces comparative relations: the young–old opposition that is used to build interpretative contexts (psychological, sociological and even economic) in literary studies. The outline-like (sketch-like) nature of this attempt to follow the “history of the motif” makes it only a research reconnaissance. Therefore, the paper obviously could not end with generalising judgements and categorical statements. Just like other (all?) thematic approaches, this one also remains “open”...