Article is deeply rooted in the history of society, presents the historical and socio-cultural situation of phenomenon of playing, children’s games and the role of children’s literature between the Enlightenment and Romanticism and shows that especially the middle class does not occupy an outstanding position. On the contrary, the middle class belongs to the most sceptical social forces. The central values of the middle class – especially the puritan, Calvinist and pietistic parts of it – are different: industriousness, diligence, asceticism, the sacrifice of pleasure, efficiency and rationality. In the bourgeois use of time, all idleness basically counts as suspicious, all playing as a useless waste of time. This attitude is reinforced by the polemical delimitation from the noble and courtly lifestyle, in which all kinds of games have a central place and which, for this reason, is viewed as parasitic. Article pays attention also to the German word for play or game (in German, there is just one word for this, “Spiel”), which can be used for mental games, word play, but also the performance on stage or in an orchestra. Beyond this, text emphasised how to classify genres based on play with language, with sense and nonsense, as well as literary patterns, and genres such as nonsense poetry and parody, as part of intellectual culture rather than part of play culture.