Although early research generally took troubadour poetry very seriously, the attitude of scholars subsequently changed considerably, in accordance with changes in the prevailing intellectual climate. In the second half of the twentieth century, scholars became much more aware of the textual dynamics operating within troubadour poetry as well as the dynamics of performance and reception at work between the poetry and its audience. In the process play, humour and related phenomena increasingly emerged as central elements of the troubadours' artistic creation.

The point of departure for the modern study of play is the work of Huizinga, Homo ludens, published in 1938. Huizinga shows how the element of play provides a common denominator for a variety of seemingly unrelated human activities, including law, war, philosophy, poetry and art. While contesting it and modifying it on several points, the 1958 book by Roger Caillois builds on Huizinga's analysis and extends it, especially with regard to the classification of games. Despite some cogent subsequent criticism by Henriot and Ehrmann, these two studies remain the fundamental works on the subject.

Huizinga's description of play (Homo ludens, p. 13) as amended by Caillois (Man, pp. 9–10) lists six essential components. Play is seen as an activity: (1) engaged in freely; (2) circumscribed within definite limits of time and space; (3) uncertain as to its outcome; (4) unproductive, in that wealth is not created, although it may be exchanged; (5) governed by rules; and (6) accompanied by a special awareness of make-believe separating it from ‘real life’.