ilinx

Via French from Ancient Greek ἶλιγξ (îlinx, “whirlpool; dizziness”), coined by French sociologist Roger Caillois in 1958.

ilinx (uncountable)

1. A form of play that creates a temporary disruption of perception, for example by inducing vertigo, dizziness, disorientation, or frenzy.
   • 1969 -, Roscoe Conkling Brown, Bryant J. Cratty, New perspectives of man in action, page 183:

     As illustrations he provides sports for agon, lotteries for alea, hero-worship for mimicry, and tightrope walking for ilinx.

   • 1972, Cinema Journal - Volumes 12-13, page 28:

     First that the type of game he plays is Ilinx— the pursuit of vertigo— on a highly ordered or skilled level.

   • 2001, Marie-Laure Ryan, Narrative as Virtual Reality, page 186:

     In literature, ilinx and its free play are represented by what Bakhtin calls the carnivalesque: chaotic structures, creative anarchy, parody, absurdity, heteroglossia, word invention, subversion of conventional meanings (a la Humpty Dumpty), figural displacements, puns, disruption of syntax, melange des genres, misquotation, masquerade, the transgression of ontological boundaries (pictures coming to life, characters interacting with their author), the treatment of identity as a plural, changeable image—in short, the destabilization of all structures, including those created by the text itself.

   • 2015, Joe Winston, Transforming the Teaching of Shakespeare, →ISBN:

     The tempest he conjures up can also be seen as a form of ilinx, in which those on the ship are tossed and tumbled about by his magic, a dark form of play in which Prospero alone knows that they are safe.

2. The sensation or altered state of consciousness that is so created, called by sociologist Roger Caillois, the “strange excitement” of wanton destruction.
   • 1969, Folklore Annual of the University Folklore Association:

     Many of the dances practiced by adults, the polka as well as more contemporary ones, induce a mild form of ilinx.

   • 1971, Parergon - Issues 1-13, page 54:

     Similarly, the search for vertigo (ilinx) through intoxication and wild dancing creates a fantasy world which leads into a vision of the sacred.

   • 2007, Daniel D. McLean, Amy R. Hurd, Nancy Brattain Rogers, Kraus' Recreation and Leisure in Modern Society, →ISBN, page 29:

     Among adults, ilinx may be achieved through certain dances involving rapid turns, such amusement park rides as roller coasters, and a variety of adventure activities, including skydiving and bungee jumping.

   • 2007, Judith Spencer, Of fools, fops and funambulists, page 806:

     Incapable of realizing his megalomaniac aspirations the artist, parodying his abortive efforts, very literally blows the whistle on his own Art : the ironic sifflet which mercilessly disrupts the "parfaite idealisation" embodied by Fancioulle translates nothing less than the inability of the romantic artist to sustain the ilinx, to abolish the ironic interstice separating subject from object, spectator from spectacle.

   • 2012, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Origins of Life: The Origins of the Existential Sharing-in-Life, →ISBN:

     When consciousness is open to understanding and experiencing the values and mysterious meanings of masks, it will shun all the dangers accompanying their powers of mimicry (in the persona and its capacity for imitation) and ilinx (the overwhelming influence of numinous archetypes).

   • 2019, Kristine Jørgensen, Faltin Karlsen, Transgression in Games and Play, →ISBN, page 28:

     The experience of ilinx is about submitting to pain and failure, even to the sensation (or the illusion) of abandoning control.

• Lixin