IN:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Partit\u00fara Irodalomtudom\u00e1nyi foly\u00f3irat, Volume XX. , Issue 1, 2025, page 21-56. , ISSN 1336-7307<\/span> DOI:\u00a0<\/strong>10.17846\/PA.2025.20.1.21-56<\/p>\n Abstrakt:<\/strong><\/p>\n In my study, I undertake an overview of the ways in which the concept of play and children\u2019s play activities are represented in literature, following a detailed and systematic review of concepts of play, functions of play, and theories of play. My paper focuses primarily on the Hungarian lyrical output of the first decades of the twentieth century, placing Kosztol\u00e1nyi Dezs\u0151\u2019s poem The Game at the center of attention. In my discussion, play is addressed as an object, an activity, a concept, an attitude, and a perspective, in connection with the more characteristic intellectual and pedagogical trends of the period. In the era under examination, a child-centered pedagogical attitude became prevalent, the topos of the child-messiah came to the fore, and the state of childhood began to be treated as a reference point in the creators\u2019 process of interpreting existence. Within this framework, play became a central topos of this attitude.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n