Homo Ludens - Knowledge

40: 917: 889: 226:"He has taken on the "essence" of the kangaroo, says the savage; he is playing the kangaroo, say we. The savage, however, knows nothing of the conceptual distinctions between "being" and "playing"; he knows nothing of "identity'\ "image" or "symbol"." In this way Huizinga suggests the universally understood concept of play is more fitting to both societies to describe this phenomenon. 903: 503:, is what allows people "to persuade themselves of their own worth, their virtue." From this, Huizinga concludes that "virtue, honor, nobility, and glory fall at the outset within the field of competition, which is that of play." This connection between virtue (άρετή) and play affords Huizinga the connection he needs to link play with civilization: 723:

becoming less obvious". But here Huizinga is in the past. He cites the examples of the "architect, the sculptor, the painter, draughtsman, ceramist, and decorative artist" who in spite of her/his "creative impulse" is ruled by the discipline, "always subjected to the skill and proficiency of the forming hand".

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Huizinga 1955, p. 109. Details of the contest are not easy to come by. Just after the fall of Troy, Mopsos meets Chalcas. Chalcas points to a fig tree and asks him: How many figs are there on that fig tree over there? Mopsos answers 9; Chalcas say 8. Chalcas is wrong and drops dead on the spot.

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Huizinga has already established an indissoluble bond between play and poetry. Now he recognizes that "the same is true, and in even higher degree, of the bond between play and music" However, when he turns away from "poetry, music and dancing to the plastic arts" he "finds the connections with play

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Huizinga attempts to classify the words used for play in a variety of natural languages. The chapter title uses "play-concept" to describe such words. Other words used with the "play-" prefix are play-function and play-form. The order in which examples are given in natural languages is as follows:

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The judge's wig, however, is more than a mere relic of antiquated professional dress. Functionally it has close connections with the dancing masks of savages. It transforms the wearer into another "being". And it is by no means the only very ancient feature which the strong sense of tradition so

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the potlatch is, in my view, the agonistic "instinct" pure and simple. must be regarded first and foremost as a violent expression of the human need to fight. Once this is admitted we may call them, strictly speaking, "play" -- serious play, fateful and fatal play, bloody play, sacred play, but

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Starting from his remark on Professor Buytendijk's use of the word "love-play", Huizinga remarks that in his own opinion "it is not the act as such that the spirit of language tends to conceive as play; rather the road thereto, the preparation for and introduction to 'love', which is often made

570:" was generally held to constitute such a system of limitation, recognizing as it did the ideal of a community with rights and claims for all, and expressly separating the state of war—by declaring it—from peace on the one hand and criminal violence on the other. It remained for the theory of " 478:

The potlatch is meant to be a frivolous, wasteful, even destruction display of superiority, and accounts are given of rival clans ruining their estates, killing their livestock and slaves, and even -- in one instance -- a spouse. Instances of this practice can be traced all over the world and

635:, in fact, is a play-function. It proceeds within the play-ground of the mind, in a world of its own which the mind creates for it. There things have a different physiognomy from the one they wear in "ordinary life", and are bound by ties other than those of logic and causality. 768:

In American politics it is even more evident. Long before the two-party system had reduced itself to two gigantic teams whose political differences were hardly discernible to an outsider, electioneering in America had developed into a kind of national sport.

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As soon as the effect of a metaphor consists in describing things or events in terms of life and movement, we are on the road to personification. To represent the incorporeal and the inanimate as a person is the soul of all myth-making and nearly all poetry.

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Huizinga shows that in ritual dances a person 'becomes' a kangaroo. There is a difference in how western thought expresses this concept and how "primitive" religions view this. Scholars of religion use western terminology to describe non western concepts.

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culture. He writes that he titled the initial lecture on which the book is based, "The Play Element of Culture". This title was repeatedly corrected to "in" Culture, a revision he objected to. The English version modified the subtitle of the book to

786:"It is ancient wisdom, but it is also a little cheap, to call all human activity 'play'. Those who are willing to content themselves with a metaphysical conclusion of this kind should not read this book." (from the Foreword, unnumbered page) 453:, Huizinga describes the festal practices of ancient Chinese clans, who incorporated various contests in their celebrations and rituals. These contests, in essence, divided the clan internally into what are known by anthropologists as 613:

For archaic man, doing and daring are power, but knowing is magical power. For him all particular knowledge is sacred knowledge—esoteric and wonder-working wisdom, because any knowing is directly related to the cosmic order itself.

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of works of art to the manner in which they are received in the social milieu", then the picture changes completely. It is this social reception, the struggle of the new "-ism" against the old "-ism", which characterises the play.

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The view we take in the following pages is that culture arises in the form of play, that it is played from the very beginning... Social life is endued with supra-biological forms, in the shape of play, which enhances its value.

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The remainder of this chapter is devoted to an analysis of the idea of virtue (άρετή) as it relates to αγων and play. Competition affords members of a community to win accolades, esteem, and honor, and honor, according to

249:, as the general term for play, has not only not passed into the Romance languages but has left hardly any traces there, so far as I can see... We must leave to one side the question whether the disappearance of 149:. It discusses the importance of the play element of culture and society. Huizinga suggests that play is primary to and a necessary (though not sufficient) condition of the generation of culture. The Latin word 474:

tribe the potlatch is a great solemn feast, during which one of two groups, with much pomp and ceremony, makes gifts on a large scale to the other group for the express purpose of showing its superiority.

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The quotation is taken from Chapter XII The Play-element in Contemporary Civilization. It seems appropriate to bring it forward to Chapter X Play-forms in Art to characterize the naturally occurring

582:). The Beacon Press book is based on the combination of Huizinga's English text and the German text, published in Switzerland 1944. Huizinga died in 1945 (the year the Second World War ended). 578:

This chapter occupies a certain unique position not only in the book but more obviously in Huizinga's own life. The first Dutch version was published in 1938 (before the official outbreak of

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Word and idea are not born of scientific or logical thinking but of creative language, which means of innumerable languages—for this act of "conception" has taken place over and over again.

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Huizinga puts forward the idea that there are "three play-forms in the lawsuit" and that these forms can be deduced by comparing practice today with "legal proceedings in archaic society":

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peculiar to the British has preserved in law. The sporting element and the humour so much in evidence in British legal practice is one of the basic features of law in archaic society.

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Of all the possible uses of the word "play" Huizinga specifically mentions the equation of play with, on the one hand, "serious strife", and on the other, "erotic applications".

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Huizinga does not mean that "play turns into culture". Rather, he sets play and culture side by side, talks about their "twin union", but insists that "play is primary".

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The remainder of the chapter is devoted to providing literary and mythological examples of contests that have served the civilizing function, with reference being made to

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Huizinga makes a point of noting that this Arabic word is used for the "playing" of a musical instrument, as in some modern European languages. Huizinga 1955, p. 35.

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Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing.

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does not mean play proper in classical Latin. Huizinga 1955, p. 35. The primary reason for making this point here is that later he shall note the disappearance of

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Training for aristocratic living leads to training for life in the State and for the State. Here too άρετή is not as yet entirely ethical. It still means above all the

1677: 1032: 841:"Logically, of course, Huizinga is correct; but as English prepositions are not governed by logic I have retained the more euphonious ablative in this sub-title." 1183:

enticing by all sorts of playing. This is particularly true when one of the sexes has to rouse or win the other over to copulating". Today one uses the word

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is the story of a gigantic potlach" (quoted by Huizinga). Tying his reflections on the potlach to his underlying thesis regarding play, Huizinga claims that

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Note from the translator: "Huizinga's own English MS. replaces this third factor by 'the cessation of normal social conditions'." Huizinga 1955, p. 91.

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Huizinga, Johan (1938). Homo Ludens: Proeve Ener Bepaling Van Het Spelelement Der Cultuur. Groningen, Wolters-Noordhoff cop. 1985. Original Dutch edition.

1255:, Huizinga 1955, p.34. Having identified a single word, Huizinga then goes on to explain that the matter is more complicated, Specifically, he mentions 779:"Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays." (On the Aesthetic Education of Man — 191:

Huizinga begins by making it clear that animals played before humans. One of the most significant (human and cultural) aspects of play is that it is

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One might call society a game in the formal sense, if one bears in mind that such a game is the living principle of all civilization.

686:. He may be regarded as an extension of the central figure in archaic cultural life who appeared before us successively as the 1809: 1779: 1760: 1079: 1015: 988: 873: 239:

Huizinga has much to say about the words for play in different languages. Perhaps the most extraordinary remark concerns the

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nonetheless that playing which, in archaic society, raises the individual or the collective personality to a higher power.

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In this chapter, Huizinga highlights the antagonistic aspect of play and its "civilizing function". Using the research of

645:, the possessed, the God-smitten, the raving one". Of the many examples he gives, one might choose Unferd who appears in 862: 460:

When describing antagonistic relationships between clans (as opposed to internally), Huizinga mentions the practice of

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Huizinga, Johan (2014). Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element of Culture. Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing

1745: 1428: 1403: 1378: 1353: 1328: 1263:(literally play-language — for polite speech, the mode of address used in conversation with persons of higher rank). 1225:'s "friendly help to say something about the Chinese expressions for the play-function". Huizinga 1955, p. 32. 1870: 1865: 1840: 457:, and these internal divisions become a social hierarchy, laying the groundwork for more "complex" civilizations. 1835: 1796:

Wilhelmina Maria Uhlenbeck-Melchior; Mary Eggermont-Molenaar; Christianus Cornelius Uhlenbeck; Alice Beck Kehoe;

1855: 854:

Huizinga, J. (1949). Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element of Culture. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

807: 515:, and the idea it originally contained of exercise by means of contests still retains much of its old weight. 682:

At the centre of the circle we are trying to describe with our idea of play there stands the figure of the

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has no direct equivalent in English, as it simultaneously refers to sport, play, school, and practice.

1520: 839:, contradicting Huizinga's stated intention. The translator explains in a footnote in the Foreword, 1850: 857:

Huizinga, Johan (1955). Homo ludens; a study of the play-element of culture. Boston: Beacon Press.

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for further details behind this contribution of the Blackfoot Indian language to Homo Ludens.

1069: 1005: 471: 1215: 8: 956: 940: 574:" to banish war's cultural function and extinguish the last vestige of the play-element. 780: 670: 39: 1815: 1805: 1785: 1775: 1756: 1741: 1424: 1399: 1374: 1349: 1324: 1235: 1075: 1011: 984: 908: 869: 858: 741:

We have to conclude, therefore, that civilization is, in its earliest phases, played.

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Huizinga makes it clear in the foreword of his book that he means the play element

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An armed conflict is as much a mode of justice as divination or a legal proceeding.

329: 348:(zhēng) — denoting anything to do with contests, corresponds exactly to the Greek 1528: 1252: 1222: 218:

Play is connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained from it.

66: 340:(wán) — is the most important word covering children's games and much much more, 1804:, translated by Mary Eggermont-Molenaar, Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 894: 803: 567: 146: 142: 56: 1592:

and so on. One wonders if Huizinga also had in mind the politically occurring

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The riddle-solving and death-penalty motif features strongly in the chapter.

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Play-category, play-concept, play-function, play-word in selected languages

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The Architecture of Use: Aesthetics and Function in Architectural Design

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koani — all children's games and also in the erotic sense of "dallying",

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vilāsa — shining, sudden appearance, playing and pursuing an occupation,

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Play is distinct from "ordinary" life both as to locality and duration.

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The information on the Blackfoot language used by Huizinga comes from

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Play creates order, is order. Play demands order absolute and supreme.

1609: 1597: 571: 500: 365: 90: 45: 1423:(1st ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. p. 64. 1398:(1st ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. p. 61. 1348:(1st ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. p. 58. 1323:(1st ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. p. 54. 1184: 462: 309: 888: 1601: 762: 687: 683: 647: 520: 390:(asobu) — is a single, very definite word, for the play function. 203: 80: 76: 1067: 435: 229: 1589: 1559: 403:

la’iba (Arabic) — playing in general, making mock of, teasing,

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In the absence of the play-spirit civilization is impossible.

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la’ab (a root, cognate with la’at) — play, laughing, mocking,

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Homo Ludens as a Comic Character in Selected American Films

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For Huizinga, the "true appellation of the archaic poet is

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Greek tradition: the story of the seers Chalcas and Mopsos.

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līlayati — light, frivolous insignificant sides of playing.

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Huizinga identifies 5 characteristics that play must have:

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I. Nature and significance of play as a cultural phenomenon

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Montana 1911: A Professor and his Wife among the Blackfeet

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Montana 1911: A Professor and his Wife among the Blackfeet

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World War II: the Encyclopedia of the War Years, 1941–1945

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to describe this "love-play". Huizinga, 1955, p. 43.

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The chapter contains some pleasantly surprising remarks:

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krīdati — denoting the play of animals, children, adults,

296:— associated with the idea of the trifling, the nugatory, 192: 1373:(1st ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. 479:

throughout history, even in sacred texts; for example,

1061: 1687:. Switzerland: Routledge. pp. ix. Archived from 1469: 1467: 1096:"JM Latin English Dictionary | Free Latin Dictionary" 1068:

Stephen Grabow; Kent Spreckelmeyer (3 October 2014).

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War itself might be regarded as a form of divination.

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One wages war to obtain a decision of holy validity.

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Homo ludens; a study of the play-element in culture

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