The Moscow school of Russian formalism is studied here based on the example of Boris Yarxo (1889 – 1942) and the follow-up, both practical and theoretical, provided by Mixail Gasparov (1935 – 2005). Gasparov, one of the most eminent classical scholars in Russia as well as a translator and theoretician of verse, considered himself a disciple of Yarxo. He devoted considerable effort to promoting a theory of literature as an exact science. He took over the distinctions established by Yarxo between science and non-science, stating that science was not “a form of knowledge but a form of exposition of knowledge:” ideas can be born out of an intuition as much as they can out of a revelation, but the task of science is to respond with an articulated explanation of knowledge following the criteria of proof and not of conviction. Nowhere does Gasparov explain Yarxo’s principles, employing them as something obvious. Now it is very important from both an historical and a theoretical point of view to point out that according to a number of historians of science, these ideas were borrowed by Yarxo from Gustav Špet (1879 – 1937). The article examines the “Špet / Yarxo antinomy.” For Gasparov, it takes the form of oppositions such as science / creation, science / art, scientific research / art and even, at a personal level, the opposition self-affirmation / self-effacement. The dramaturgy of these metamorphoses is examined based in particular on Gasparov’s correspondence with Nina Braginskaia in their discussion on persons such as Ol’ga Frejdenberg and Mixail Baxtin.