Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and the Element of Playfulness in Emily Dickinson
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Michael West
Abstract
In Homo Ludens Johan Huizinga defined play as a free activity outside “ordinary” life, viewed as “not serious”, “connected with no material interest” or possible “profit”, “proceed[ing] within its own proper boundaries” by “fixed rules”, and fostering groups shrouded in “secrecy stress[ing]” their separateness “by disguise or other means” (1949: 13). He audaciously argued that human culture originated in play and to some extent remains play. His analysis illuminates how Dickinson approached aspects of culture like language, religion, war, law, politics, love, education, and art. Nourished by affluent gentry privileges and prejudices, Dickinson’s detached playfulness strikes some as socially irresponsible. Does defending her seriousness validate Huizinga’s claim that “solitary play is productive of culture only in a limited degree” (1949: 47), or should we challenge Huizinga here? Did her privately circulated works have any impact on culture, and if so, how? Strategies of withdrawal, inconclusiveness, and depersonalization ultimately turned her playful poetry into high culture.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Preliminary Note
- Constructing the Poet’s ‘Now’: “Deor’s” Modernist Temporalities
- Beaumont and Fletcher Rewrite Cervantes: Love’s Pilgrimage, a Farcical Representation of Spain and a Subversion of Jacobean Patriarchy
- The Textual Apparatus of Empire in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
- Narrative Conflict and Implied Value Conflict: An Analysis of Aspects of the Implied Worldview of Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon (2002) and Hanif Kureishi’s The Body (2002)
- Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and the Element of Playfulness in Emily Dickinson
- Climate Change and the Ironies of Omniscience in Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind
- Reviews
- John Gallagher. 2019. Learning Languages in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 286 pp., 19 illustr., £ 63.00.
- Review
- Michael D. J. Bintley. 2020. Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture. Studies in the Early Middle Ages 45. Turnhout: Brepols, 231 pp., 13 illustr., € 75.00.
- Anthony Bale and Sebastian Sobecki (eds.). 2019. Medieval English Travel: A Critical Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xviii + 498 pp., 4 figures, 3 maps, £ 95.00 (hb)/£ 20.00 (pb).
- A. W. Strouse. 2021. Form and Foreskin: Medieval Narratives of Circumcision. New York: Fordham University Press, 165 pp., $ 90.00 (hc)/$ 25.00 (pb).
- Torsten Meireis and Gabriele Rippl (eds.). 2019. Cultural Sustainability: Perspectives from the Humanities and Social Sciences. Routledge Environmental Humanities. Abingdon: Routledge, xiv + 268 pp., 19 figures, 3 tables, £ 120.00.
- Ina Habermann (ed.). 2020. The Road to Brexit: A Cultural Perspective on British Attitudes to Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press, xvi + 256 pp., 7 figures, 1 table, £ 80.00.
- Corinna Lenhardt. 2020. Savage Horrors: The Intrinsic Raciality of the American Gothic. American Culture Studies 29. Bielefeld: transcript, 288 pp., 1 figure, € 45.00.
- Timo Müller. 2018. The African American Sonnet: A Literary History. Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, x + 172 pp., $ 99.00
- Verena Laschinger and Sirpa Salenius (eds.). 2019. Neglected American Women Writers of the Long Nineteenth Century. Routledge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature. New York/Abingdon: Routledge, xiii + 209 pp., £ 120.00.
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Preliminary Note
- Constructing the Poet’s ‘Now’: “Deor’s” Modernist Temporalities
- Beaumont and Fletcher Rewrite Cervantes: Love’s Pilgrimage, a Farcical Representation of Spain and a Subversion of Jacobean Patriarchy
- The Textual Apparatus of Empire in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
- Narrative Conflict and Implied Value Conflict: An Analysis of Aspects of the Implied Worldview of Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon (2002) and Hanif Kureishi’s The Body (2002)
- Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and the Element of Playfulness in Emily Dickinson
- Climate Change and the Ironies of Omniscience in Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind
- Reviews
- John Gallagher. 2019. Learning Languages in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 286 pp., 19 illustr., £ 63.00.
- Review
- Michael D. J. Bintley. 2020. Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture. Studies in the Early Middle Ages 45. Turnhout: Brepols, 231 pp., 13 illustr., € 75.00.
- Anthony Bale and Sebastian Sobecki (eds.). 2019. Medieval English Travel: A Critical Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xviii + 498 pp., 4 figures, 3 maps, £ 95.00 (hb)/£ 20.00 (pb).
- A. W. Strouse. 2021. Form and Foreskin: Medieval Narratives of Circumcision. New York: Fordham University Press, 165 pp., $ 90.00 (hc)/$ 25.00 (pb).
- Torsten Meireis and Gabriele Rippl (eds.). 2019. Cultural Sustainability: Perspectives from the Humanities and Social Sciences. Routledge Environmental Humanities. Abingdon: Routledge, xiv + 268 pp., 19 figures, 3 tables, £ 120.00.
- Ina Habermann (ed.). 2020. The Road to Brexit: A Cultural Perspective on British Attitudes to Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press, xvi + 256 pp., 7 figures, 1 table, £ 80.00.
- Corinna Lenhardt. 2020. Savage Horrors: The Intrinsic Raciality of the American Gothic. American Culture Studies 29. Bielefeld: transcript, 288 pp., 1 figure, € 45.00.
- Timo Müller. 2018. The African American Sonnet: A Literary History. Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, x + 172 pp., $ 99.00
- Verena Laschinger and Sirpa Salenius (eds.). 2019. Neglected American Women Writers of the Long Nineteenth Century. Routledge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature. New York/Abingdon: Routledge, xiii + 209 pp., £ 120.00.
