ABSTRACT
At first glance, D. W. Winnicott may seem to have a good deal less than, say, E. L. Freud or J. Lacan to offer students and practitioners of literary art. It is clear from many of his writings that he enjoys literature, painting, and music, but he seldom seeks to enlist them as corroborative evidence either in his theoretical papers or in his case studies. He writes well, but plainly and without conceit. He writes tentatively, in the manner of one who has tips and suggestions to offer his colleagues, rather than paradigms or doctrines: his rhetoric is one of collaboration between co-equals rather than one of solitary exertion and insight. The extraordinary thing about Winnicott's account of play is that it connects the world of infantile experience with the world of sophisticated cultural production in a way that, although modestly phrased, is in fact radical and far-reaching.
