Johan Huizinga questioned Burckhardt’s view of the Renaissance. In The Autumn of the Middle Ages, he examined Burgundian culture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, eventually identifying “play” as the essence of human nature in Homo Ludens.

Huizinga harbored doubts about Burckhardt’s view of the Renaissance.
In The Autumn of the Middle Ages, he examines the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century
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Thought
Huizinga harbored doubts about Burckhardt’s view of the Renaissance.
In The Autumn of the Middle Ages, he examines the culture of the Burgundian Duchy of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and in Chapter Eight praises a Christian society in which play and seriousness are not clearly separated, asserting that obscene words and hidden expressions alike are all grounded in ethnic backgrounds and represent symbols of the maturity of aristocratic culture.
Developing this line of thought, he identified the essence of humanity in “play” in Homo Ludens (1938).

Koichi Horikoshi, the translator of The Autumn of the Middle Ages and a leading authority on Huizinga studies, stated that he was captivated by the great allure of Huizinga’s symbolic implications.
Huizinga also maintained exchanges with the mythologist Karl Kerényi.
Among biographies is Gen’ichirō Satomi’s Johan Huizinga: His Historical View and Theory of Civilization (Shinsho edition, Kindai Bungeisha, 2001).

Homo ludens
[Meaning: the playing human]
A term coined by the Dutch historian Huizinga.
It denotes a view of humanity in which play is the essence of human activity and the source from which culture is generated.
Play is argued to transcend biological activity aimed at sustaining life and to endow life with meaning[3].

Works
Japanese translations
Selected Works of Huizinga (Complete Works in Six Volumes) (translated by Masao Kaneiwa, Gen’ichirō Satomi, and others, Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1971, revised edition 1990).

1. Homo Ludens, 2. In the Shadow of Tomorrow, 3. The Mind that Portrays History, 4. Renaissance and Realism, 5. The Tainted World, 6. The Autumn of the Middle Ages.
   The Autumn of the Middle Ages (translated by Masao Kaneiwa and Gen’ichirō Satomi, Sōbunsha, 1958 / Kadokawa Bunko (two volumes), 1976, revised edition 1984).
   The Autumn of the Middle Ages (translated by Koichi Horikoshi, Chūō Kōronsha, “World Classics 55,” 1969 (later revised), single-volume edition 1971 / Chūkō Bunko (two volumes), 1976 / Chūkō Classics (I–II), 2001).
   Homo Ludens: Play and Culture (translated by Hideo Takahashi, Chūō Kōronsha, 1963, revised edition 1971 / Chūkō Bunko, 1973).
   Tasks of Cultural History (translated by Gen’ichirō Satomi, Tokai University Press, 1965, revised edition 1978).
   Erasmus: The Age of the Reformation (translated by Nobuhiko Miyazaki, Chikuma Series, 1965, reprinted 1985 / Chikuma Gakugei Bunko, 2001).
   The Century of Rembrandt: An Overview of Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish Culture (translated by Fukuya Kurihara, Sōbunsha, 1968, revised edition 1987, etc.).
   My Path to History (translated by Naoyoshi Sakai, Chikuma Series, 1970, revised edition 1985).
   In the Shadow of Tomorrow: A Diagnosis of the Spiritual Illness of Our Time (translated by Koichi Horikoshi, Chūō Kōronsha, 1971 / Chūkō Bunko, 1975).
   On American Culture: The Individual and the Masses (translated by Tomio Hashimoto, Sekai Shisōsha, 1989).
   From the History of the Fatherland: Huizinga’s Historical Picture Book (translated and annotated by Gen’ichirō Satomi, Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1972).