I I 72-15,329 t WILLIAMS, Richard Darby, 1942- POETA LUDEHS: EXPLORATIONS IN THE THEORY OF ART AS PLAY. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1971 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan © Copyright by Richard Darby Williams 1972 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN-MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED POETA LUDENS; EXPLORATIONS IN THE THEORY OP ART AS PLAY DISSERTATION Presented In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy In the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Richard Darby Williams, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 1971 Approved by Adviser Department of English PLEASE NOTE: Some pages have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company PREFACE Play Is an elusive term, rich in meaning and implication and varied in usage. We speak of the erotic love play or foreplay of lovers and of the holy play of the gods. We play games, musical instruments, and roles; we play with ideas, with toys, and with playmates; in various senses we play up, play down, play out, play into, play on, play off, and play back. Movies play at theatres, sunlight plays on waves, otters play on mudslides, lovers play the field, and gamblers play the horses. Almost any activity, any creation, and any person can be described as playful. Such linguistic fluidity makes it extremely difficult to define play from any single perspective. Considering the richness and elusiveness of the concept, it seems more appropriate to examine play from several related or over­ lapping points of view. That is the method I have followed in this thesis, coming at play through diverse channels and examining many of its multiple uses and meanings. The main approaches are political, historical, metaphysical, aesthetic, physiological, psychological, and structural. No one approach tells us all we need to know, but each one 11 furthers our understanding of play and suggests how valuable the concept has become In the humanities. My chief interest is to examine the usefulness of the term play in aesthetic theory. Throughout this thesis I am working toward a theory of art as play. It seems clear to me that art is one of the extensions into adult life of the child's world of play. The artist shares with the child the fun of imitating and of playing roles, the freedom of imagining and toying with reality, the challenge of making and creating— of transforming fictions into forms. But this aesthetic theory is placed in a much larger human context. I arrive at aesthetics and literary criticism only after the much ado of two major excursions in the first two chapters— one into politics and history, the other into metaphysics. These two chapters represent opposite sides of the same coin. Wavering between heaven and earth, man is a creature of two worlds, one time-bound, the other timeless. I look at play both as a process of becoming and as an end of being; I try to demonstrate that both sides of man's paradoxical nature are tied up with the notion of play. I reveal and celebrate my political and spiritual beliefs with an enthusiasm that will undoubtedly seem subjective, confessional, and self-assertive— modes that seem legitimate to me even If they are not ordinarily used i l l In graduate school dissertations. Conceivably, the arguments for art as play In the final three chapters could stand on their own, independent of the political and religious orientations of the first two chapters. But much of the significance of my play aesthetics would be lost without these broader concerns. The theory of art as play remains incomplete without some sense of how play does have meanings, secular and sacred, which touch the very tissues of life itself. Politics and metaphysics provide then the two larger perspectives of my aesthetics. Chapter I deals with the political overtones of play: play seen both as revolution­ ary means and as utopian end. I consider play in this section as part of the historical process of becoming and emphasize its peculiarly contemporary driving force. Play has become the identification card for members of an emergent counter-culture intent upon creating their own variety of political and cultural freedom. This alone has helped to make play such an important, richly-loaded, and elusive word in our time. In Chapter II I look at life sub specie aeternltatls. play God, and try to divine the metaphysical meanings of play. In many respects these cosmic meanings simply rediscover on another plane the political implications of play; freedom and creation are again the key concepts. And so these first two chapters iv finally meet to form a circle. Within this circle, on the magical playground of art, I have elaborated a theory of art as play. A brief sketch of ray aesthetic theory is provided in the third chapter, an outline that is gradually refined and expanded in the two concluding chapters. Much of what is set forth as my own play aesthetics in Chapter III I have learned from previous play aestheticians and theorists. I record my debt to the past in the fourth chapter, a critical survey of various theories of play— physiological, biological, and psychological. In the final chapter I turn to structural­ ism as another approach and indicate possible future directions for a continually evolving play aesthetics. The gist of my thesis can be stated in one sentence: art, like the best of life, is play. The rest, all that has been built upon this childishly innocent belief, can be aptly described as attempts to give as many reasons as possible for believing this and as many qualifications and refinements as time and space allowed. Because good reasons for considering art a species of play can be found everywhere and because variety is a virtue, I have some­ times recited these reasons from the past, have sometimes Identified them in the present, and have sometimes attempted to divine them in the future. One result of this theoretical Indirection (or v multiplicity) will be obvious at first glance: the Protean term play undergoes a surprisingly large number of meta­ morphoses, Although play stands at the center of everything I write, I have not attempted (as Huizinga for one did) to fold all into one and to seek a single definition of play that will remain inclusive throughout. I think of play as the creative spark of the universe, Deus ludens, from which all else springs forth. Arriving long after the creation of the universe, we hear only the distant reverberations, the echoes, of that great event. Rather than turning back on play, I ride a few of the crests of numerous waves spreading out from the central point. What has been lost in the way of precise focus I hope has been made up for in well-roundedness. Not a dissertation in the conventional sense of a clean, well- lighted place, what follows is an apology both for life and for art. If this seems unscholarly and undisciplined, perhaps it is because our rationale for the function of scholarship in the humanities has been, in the past, too limited and too parochial, I regard the present work not as my final contribution to literary criticism nor even as my last words on the subject of play, but only as an unfinished intermediate stage in the long-range creation of an aesthetic theory. I have not, for example, made much of an attempt to put vl theory into practice by discussing specific literary works 4 sub specie ludi. That crucial task remains to be done. And the theory itself needs to be perfected and sharpened. So at most I have staked out a territory that needs exploring. And I have argued that literary critics need to take their places among the many others who are presently exploring the fertile garden of play. X am indebted to many teachers, critics, and players. I owe special thanks to Charles Wheeler for his enthusiastic support and critical advice throughout the writing; to Joan Webber for providing inspirations and insights I have yet to bring to maturity; to Julian t&rkels for being both a good reader and a good sport; and to Tony Stoneburner for ministering to my spirit and teaching me the theology of play. I dedicate this playful work to my playmates, whose communal dancing, laughing, and sporting have brought me the feast of joy. vll VITA January 20, 19*1-2 , , , Born - Goshen, Indiana 196*1- ............... B.A, , The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio I967-I969 ........... N.D.E.A. Fellow and Teaching Assistant, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio I9 6 9 ................. M.A., The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 1969-1970.. ........... Teaching Associate, Denison University, Granville, Ohio 1970-1971 ........... G.L.C.A. Fellow and Visiting Lecturer, Denison University, Granville, Ohio PUBLICATIONS "Two Baroque Game Poems on Grace: HerbertTs ’Paradise' and Milton's 'On Time'," Criticism. XII (1970), 180- 19*1-. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Studies in Literary Criticism. Professor Charles Wheeler. Studies in Renaissance and 17th Century Poetry and Poetics. Professors Joan Webber and Ruth Hughey. Studies in 19th Century Literature. Professor James Logan. vlil TABLE OP CONTENTS Page PREFACE ............................................ il VITA .............................................. viii Chapter I. THE DEATH OP HISTORY AND THE BIRTH OP P L A Y ............. 1 The Abolition of Time: the Political Significance of Play The Abolition of Work: Play and Technological Revolution II. "WELTSPIEL": THE SACRED PLAY OF CREATION .......... 5^ III. POETA LUDENS: TOWARD A PLAY AESTHETICS . 114 Games, Rules, and Art: Costumes and Uniforms Play, Display, and Replay In Art IV.