Bread and Circuses
In the past, too little thought has been given to the relationship of culture to play. That the forms of play have varied with different cultural epochs is often forgotten; even more rarely mentioned is the idea that culture arises in the form of play, and play needs to be born. This is the main thesis of Professor Huizinga’s important and absorbing book, Homo Ludens.1 He argues that culture is ” played from the beginning “, and that through play ” society expresses its interpretation of life and the world “. Play satisfies all kinds of communal ideals and constitutes one of the main bases of civilization, ” existing before culture and pervading it from its earliest beginnings “. This does not imply that play has become culture through a process of evolution, but that ” in its earliest phases, culture has a play character, that it proceeds in the shape and mood of play Thus ” play adorns life, amplifies it and is to that extent a necessity both for the individual?as a life function?and for society by reason of the meaning it contains, its significance, its expressive values, its spiritual and social associations, in short, as a cultural function.”
To illustrate and understand this thesis, let us consider some of the characteristics of play as a cultural activity.
Play and Reality
Play is a phantasy acted out, unconnected with reality, and takes the players outside and beyond ordinary reality. The player steps out of this common every-day life, out of this ” real ” life, into a world which he has created and whose rules are his toys. He creates a series of temporary worlds within a ” real ” world; temporary worlds in which he assumes a disguise, acts a part and becomes another person. Hence play appertains to magic; it is make-believe. But play can be controlled, begun and ended at will, thus marking it off further from reality, which is ineluctable and unalterable.
The play world is a creative act in direct contact with the conscious and unconscious elements of phantasy life. It is a ” pretending yet so engrossing as to run away with the player. This absorption gives to play a seriousness of its own, which in no way destroys the feeling of pretence, but rather serves to re-inforce it and makes the pretending appear more real. The make-believer now believes. Thus, play is both knowing and not knowing. ” The savage is a good actor who can be quite absorbed in his role like a child at play; and also like a child, a good spectator who can be frightened to death of something he knows perfectly well to be no real lion.”2 When William Pitt is shown in a toga as a Roman Emperor, we are not taken in; he may have believed himself to have the qualities of the Romans, but there was never any question of his adopting their way of life. Thus, play is an interruption in the course of reality, and hence Huizinga refers to it as an ” interlude ” in our daily life, in which there is a liberation, enabling mankind to proceed to further creative efforts.
Play exists for itself
It follows that in play the means are more important than the end. Play exists for itself with no ultimate objective but itself. It is not undertaken to order, or it ceases to be play and becomes a task. It is a voluntary activity and hence is an expression of freedom. In this connection play is most easily opposed to work, where the end is all important. As play stands outside every-day reality and is self-sufficient, ethical judgements of good or bad, true or false, do not concern it. Play has no moral function, as Huizinga stresses, and once an act acquires an ethical quality it ceases to be play, since the end is now all important.
This self-sufficiency gives to play a ” superfluous ” quality, being to life as an ornament is to dress. Indeed, it is to be expected that those cultures where the play element is important will be rich in ornamentation, as, for instance, Rococo architecture, with its luxuriant friezes and embellishing curves. The churches of this period have a boudoir elegance more akin to play than piety, and are in sharp contrast to the mediaeval cathedrals. Men’s dress in the 17th century illustrates the point further with its bows, ribbons, festoons of lace and other pieces of preciousness. The very word ” style” implies a freedom of the mind to play with artistic forms, freedom to be independent of the past styles and to express phantasy in new forms.
Play creates order through rules
Yet within this freedom play creates order. All play has its rules which cannot be transgressed, and are many times more rigid than the laws and regulations of the real world. Play is dependent on the absolute observation of these rules, and once they are broken the play world collapses. They are the ritual of play. These rules, moreover, give an ethical quality to play of its own; since, caught in the conflict of the desire to win, whilst having to abide by the rules, the players’ sense of fair play is continually under test.
Huizinga points out how society is more lenient to the cheat than to the spoil sport. For the cheat still acknowledges the need for rules and is playing at breaking them. His actions are still part of play and hence can be affected by punishment. But the spoil sport, by withdrawing from play, reveals the inherent fragility of the play situation, by his behaviour he breaks the spell, lets in the real world and shows up the illusion. Culturally, the spoil sports are heretics, prophets, innovators, conscientious objectors and rebels, and arouse murderous feelings in the play community. The rules of play mark out play in time and place. Play starts and ends at a certain moment; the curtain rises, or the umpire’s whistle ends the game. Nowhere is the difference between play and reality seen more clearly than in regard to time. The player is unaware of duration and has no eye for the clock. Morning comes before the card player is aware that the candles have been lit, and time is up before the match is ended. Yet this lack of a sense of duration is not from time standing still, but that in play all is change, movement and succession. Every moment of time flows into the next in rapid succession, and consciousness is unaware of a past and lives in an ever different present.
Culturally the place of play has always been important. The territory of play is marked out and rapidly assumes a sanctity; it is forbidden to all non-players and becomes unusable for other purposes. The Greek games were never mere athletic contests, but sacred religious festivals, where Pindar sang his odes and Aeschylus produced his plays, the stadium serving both purposes and becoming a sacred place of pilgrimage. The 18th century card player produced the salon, and the age plays at conversation. To-day the salon has become the unused front parlour and is equally sacred.
The full cultural force of the rules of play is well seen in poetry and music. In these arts, through rules, order is created out of chaos. Of those artistic forms most characteristic of style in aft, the sonnet and the sonata are the strictest in their rules and are at the same time pure play. Their inherent difficulties lead to a pruning of thought, to the extraction of the essence of emotion and thereby higher forms of cultural activity are achieved.
Play and Group formation
The importance of play in culture is not only that it involves individuals in groups but also that through play new communities are formed. Furthermore, the acceptance of the rules of play, its fixed time and place, give to such communities a permanence. As Huizinga aptly puts it, ” the feeling of being ‘ apart together ‘ in an exceptional situation, of sharing something important, of mutually withdrawing from the rest of the world and of rejecting the usual norms, retains its magic beyond the duration of the individual game The magic element in play requires a group of believers and gives to the group its need for secrecy. Thus, for instance, in early childhood ” the charm of play is enhanced by making it a secret “. This point is an important one since often play has little cultural significance, because it is played in isolation. Games of patience, and cross words are culturally unproductive, since the element of tension is limited to the individual and does not arouse empathy in the spectators, who are not enthralled and remain aware of their individual identity. But once play involves individuals or groups in some competition, or opposing way, and requires a display of skill, knowledge, courage and determination, the situation is changed, tension occurs and play becomes part of culture. The skill of the individual wins esteem not only for its possessor but also for the group to which he belongs, and group awareness is thereby heightened. The group in turn provides an audience for the player, enhancing his pleasure and further helping him to lose himself in play. Thus we are reminded that play is mirth, fun, and is something to be enjoyed. This element of joy reinforces group solidarity and thus culturally play is linked to holidays and festivals. Here again, we meet the ” interlude” quality of play already mentioned.
Play and Contest
It is, therefore, not surprising to find that play-culture occurs most obviously in contests and is closely linked to the relief of repressed aggression. For through play aggression is expressed without real consequences. Thus play has an essential ” anti-thetical ” nature, ranging from slanging matches and part-singing to duels and war. In all cultures the commonest form adopted by play is a vying between individuals or groups. It is well known that the Greeks loved to hold contests?singing, riddle solving, keeping awake or drinking. Huizinga quotes as an example of the importance of the contest in the cultural expression cf play, the ” potlatch” of certain Indian tribes of British Columbia. This is a festival at which one group gives presents to another for the sole purpose of showing superiority. No more is incumbent upon the recipient than to hold a return feast at which he out-does the other’s generosity. It is also possible to find many interesting examples of play-culture expressing aggression. Chess originated in India among pacifist Buddhists and is played as a substitute for war. In poker there is little attempt to disguise the aggression element, the players mean to get the better of each other by means, fair or foul, whilst keeping to the letter of the rules of the game. The Chinese held contests in politeness, and the Middle Ages, boasting contests. War provides other more direct examples; at Crecy the French king offered Edward the choice of two places and four separate days for battle. In all these examples destructive impulses are mastered and become culturally creative.
Before considering our present cultural situation, let us examine the relationship of play to other cultural epochs, taking as our examples the Romans, the Middle Ages and the Romantics.
The Romans
Of all Roman ruins the commonest and the largest are those associated with play, the amphitheatres, theatres and triumphal arches, reminding us how constant a feature they were of every Roman city. As Rostovtzeff3 showed, the Roman triumph was not merely a celebration of military success, or mere expression of relief from the perils of war, but, more important still, ” through such triumphs the people paid their acknowledgments and tributes of respect to the divine power (the Emperor) through whom, and thanks to whom, the Empire existed The games were not just another method designed to keep a rebellious and turbulent proletariat quiet. They were holy games and the people’s right to them was a sacred one. As Huizinga says, ” their basic function lay not merely in celebrating such prosperity as the community had already won for itself, but in fortifying it and ensuring further prosperity by means of ritual. The slightest offence against ritual or the most accidental disturbance invalidated the whole performance “.
Further, Huizinga reminds us how the distribution of corn had little to do with Christian charity, but was ” munificence for the sake of honour and glory, for the sake of outdoing your neighbour and beating him it is play. Such ostentatious generosity is seen to-day at Continental christenings when money and sugared almonds are thrown to the local children and poor, the amounts depending on the social position of the donor. It is in the ” potlatch ” spirit.
The Middle Ages
Play and culture were clearly entwined throughout the Middle Ages when feasts, festivals and fairs abounded. Chivalry, with its tournaments and jousts, was an important cultural factor inculcating an idea of social service, of service to the weak, the poor and the lowly by the strong, the rich and the mighty. All such services were free from degradation and disparagement, the more easily carried out since linked to play by rules unconnected with the real world and accompanied by mirth, jollity, banquets and all manner of celebrations. As a game it was a constant test of skill, courage, and fortitude. Through chivalry, war was considerably humanized, prisoners of war being held to ransom and the essence of the war game lying in taking an enemy alive. In the 100 years War, battles were lost through quarrels over precedence in the French court or the wearing of heavy tournament armour in the battle field. In 1389, when England and Portugal were fighting the Spaniards and the French, dysentery broke out in the Anglo-Portuguese camp. The English obtained safe conducts to recuperate in the French camp, rejoining their Portuguese allies to fight against the French when fully recovered. Here the game of chivalry is more important than the game of war.
Chivalry was important in raising the status of woman. The code of courtly love was particularly strict, enforcing several years’ probation before the lover got his kiss, and to achieve this was rare. The great principle of this code was absolute fidelity based on a high standard of self-discipline; the ” Roman de la Rose ” portrays this courtly game and through its story is the embodiment of it.
What a game is the mediaeval cathedral. The stonemason includes in the building his pet dog, or a caricature of a local busybody with Christ and his saints. The ass at Chartres plays the lute, and the gargoyles are the more grotesque for being part of a game of makebelieve. The tomb of Abbot Islip at Westminster shows him falling from a tree crying ” I slip The awe-inspiring ” Last Judgements ” of the French cathedrals show the dead rising from their tombs in the prime of life, and Abraham’s bosom resembling a marsupial’s pouch, so playful and free is the artistic phantasy.
The Romantics
As Huizinga points out, an important early figure of emergent Romanticism, with its ” visions of brooding, melancholy figures, impenetrable gloom and tearful seriousness “, is Horace Walpole and his novel The Castle of Otranto. This historically important novel, described in its title page as ” Gothic “, is a macabre thriller in a mediaeval setting, with gigantic ghosts, meetings in graveyards, murders, prophecies and destructions. Similarly, Walpole filled his house at Strawberry Hill with a collection of ” Gothic curiosities But with him, all this is a game and his letters show how he remained aloof from such Gothic influences, despising it in others. However, from this fantastic Gothic villa sprang the later Gothic revival.
Goethe and Napoleon were fervent admirers of’Ossian, that other early Romantic character whose poems of Gaelic legends, discovered in 1763, were everywhere acclaimed by the new Romanticism. But it needed the stern realism of Dr Johnson to point out their faked nature. Much sport was had by Macpherson in writing them and by the critics in either attacking or defending them. Dr Johnson’s use of reason is yet another game; nobody enjoyed a bludgeoning argument so much as the author of Rasselas, that hero who travelling through Abyssinia and Egypt discovered that happiness is nowhere to be found. It is play when Rasselas finds that the teachers of philosophy are unable to support their own misfortunes. The sentimentality of Rousseau, his picture of the noble savage, is again but play, quite divorced from reality. Indeed, when it was suggested that he should examine the noble savage by personal experience, he curtly declined; that might have broken the charm and resembled work. Madame de Warens, with whom Rousseau spent his most formative years, and the Court were busy being milkmaids while the realities of the Revolution became more pressing. Rarely has an age enjoyed its tears so much. It wept at the pathetic tale of Virginia, who was ship-wrecked just as she was reaching the shores of Mauritius coming home from Europe and about to embrace her faithful childhood friend and lover, Paul. A naked sailor tried to persuade her to take off her clothes and leap from the poop of the sinking ship, but her delicacy forbade her and she perished before Paul’s eyes. Never were the dictates of etiquette more disastrously obeyed.
Play To-day
What finally, is the relation of play to the culture of our epoch ? Where are our bread and circuses to-day ? Huizinga’s thesis is that modern culture bears few of the characteristics of play. The 19th century left little room for play and, with that age, culture ceased to be played, work and production were the ideals of the age, imparting a deadly earnestness to life. ” All Europe donned the boiler-suit and play became work.” The growth of technology, the increased importance of economic factors, and the subordination of the way of life to materialistic and utilitarian theories, all hasten the decline of the play element, leaving us today culturally bankrupt.
Thus clothes are no longer ornamental but designed purely for work uses. Colour disappears from men’s clothes, and the grey flannel trousers become ubiquitous. The tailcoat is replaced by the jacket and ” ends a career of many centuries by becoming the garb of waiterswhere its play function still continues. Long trousers, the habitual dress of peasants, are now worn by everyone. Sport is taken seriously and becomes a business with gate money, transfer money and shares. The distinction ” Gentlemen and Players ” grows up, marking off those for whom playing is work and, therefore, no longer a game. Nor does the modern Olympic Games have anything of the cultural qualities of those of ancient Greece. Whist and ecarte are replaced by bridge, with its professionals, its systems and its income for the Culbertsons. There seems to be little gain for the culture of the community in these activities which are more related to relieving boredom than to expressing phantasy outside the realities of life.
The same situation is found in modern movements in art which are in deadly earnest. We would like to think of Picasso as play, just as Munnings and his race horses so clearly are. What frightens us is that Picasso is a spoil sport, refusing to play the old artistic game and breaking the charm of the Chantrey Bequest pictures of carousing cardinals. To understand the full strength of cultural traditions represented by Munnings, it is only necessary to think of Chesterton’s remark ” the English working man is not fussed about the equality of men but only about the inequality of horses Poetry has become the private property of a few coteries. To understand Auden and Isherwood it is necessary to belong to their circle. The artist everywhere is retiring into his ivory tower, and the public care little if he passes the war in Hollywood or at the front fighting. Art, in acquiring an end by craving for originality, has ceased to be play and has become work. Likewise architecture no longer serves social ends but is at the service of personal aestheticisms, and hence is socially isolated. The architect’s energies are no longer directed towards building the Parthenon, Rheims, or public theatres, but towards the individual and utilitarian dwelling place. The suburban row of villas reveals no cultural communal aspiration, save that of the builder’s expenses. Throughout, art has become defunctionalized. There are indications, however, that Huizinga’s portrait of to-day is too pessimistic and is over-imbued with the sense of ” laudator temporis acti for essentially the problem of play and culture to-day is one of participation. If sport has become commercialized it is because the possibilities of direct participation are limited. That the urge to participate, to share some common experience, is present, can be seen in the modern phenomenon of football pools. These provide an opportunity for sharing in the wins and losses of favourite teams, and the Saturday ” late night final ” edition has given an added purpose to the life of many. The pools have their strict rules and sense of magic, and the devotee is taken out of himself. By laying out his money he shares vicariously in the dangers of the game. The desire to participate is there, although it is proxy culture-play.
Our culture offers two fields in which participation is direct, absorbing and elevating the concert and the ballet. Music is still written for community festive occasions, Aida for the opening of the Suez Canal, or the Leningrad symphony for the herioc defence of a city. Shostakovitch is later rebuked by the Soviet Academy of Arts, precisely because he sought to revert to a personal aesthetic instead of expressing the culture-play element of the Soviet world. Our flourishing colliery bands and local choirs are further examples of the way our culture expresses itself through play. But it is probably in the ballet that culture-play elements most clearly appear. The modern ballet has all the play characteristics mentioned above. It is a direct expression of phantasy creating a make-believe world for its devotees. Its ritual is sacred and all is order within it. The aesthetic appeal is great, as seen by its ever-increasing popularity.
Through these two culture-play fields, play to-day has a social function, adds to the culture of the community and enriches the mind of the individual and his group. As Aristotle desired it, play, through music and ballet, purifies the emotions of those qualities felt to be dangerous and distasteful. Thus the emotional life of a culture is enriched, the individual taken out of himself and a higher degree of mental health achieved. P.M.T.
REFERENCES
(1) Huizinga, J. Homo Ludens. International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction. Kegan Paul. 1949. (2) Mareit, R. R. The Threshold of Religion. (3) Rostovtzeff, M. A History of the Ancient World.
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