The dissertation wants to find an answer to the following question, both in a general, theoretical sense and in a more concrete, literary historical sense: what insights can those cases offer us in which probably the most indirect medium of the body, the literary text thematizes the most direct and complex coding of the body, sport. As modern sport usually appears in the 20th century discourses of humanities and social sciences as something degrading, deplored and exposed rather than a socio-cultural phenomenon to be praised, the first part of the thesis analyses the conservative, leftist, and liberal critique of sport, then proceeds, using the insights of English-speaking sport criticism and the game theories of German Hermeneutics to provide an apologetics by highlighting the unique functions of sport in our high-tech civilization. The second theoretical part of the treatise aims to explore the various medial aspects of sport, especially the relationship between the practical knowledge that materializes in the motion of the sportsman and the linguistic enunciations which set out to interpret this. In a strict sense, the rhythm of the body carrying out actual motions cannot be described through a system of signs based on meaning, thus language proves inaccurate in this case. From a methodological point of view, this insight makes it necessary for the thesis to make use of the recent theories of culture which isolate the production of presence from the production of meaning to focus on the nature of interactions between these two concepts. The conclusions drawn from the introductory theoretical part of the dissertation are then contextualized in chapters dealing directly with the analysis of literary texts. All of these works are examples taken from the Hungarian prose of the last fifty years, and in which motifs taken from sport appear in conjunction with important questions of identity, language as well as generic assumptions. Dealing the works of Géza Ottlik, Miklós Mészöly and Iván Mándy, the first bigger section of the chapters devoted to analysis seeks to answer the following question: what kind of dialogue can be established between those works of these writers, in which the thematic and discursive appearance of sport can be linked to significant questions of being and identity. The second part analyzes the interaction of sport and satire in György Moldova’s short stories; examines how in György Ferdinandy’s texts the football field becomes the an area of symbolical clash which has political meanings; and interprets György Spiró’s story entitled “Apámmal a meccsen.” The next section of the dissertation focuses on how in Péter Nádas’s oeuvre the thematizing of sport contributes to the representation of the relationship between the body, perception, mind, thinking, and language, then analyzes the poetical process which in Ferenc Szijj’s short story entitled “A futás napja” dismantles the tropological system of running/life. The dissertation then goes on to explore the most recent “sport books” of Hungarian fiction. In the case of Péter Esterházy it foregrounds questions of football, metafiction and language-game; in the case of Endre Kukorelly’s shorter prose and autobiographical novel it focuses on the hermeneutic relevance of football; while in the case of László Darvasi’s short stories, the metaphysical interpretations of the game are highlighted. Reading Lajos Parti Nagy’s “A hullámzó Balaton,” the concluding chapter of the thesis analyzes the contradiction that exists between the text that establishes itself with reference to sportsman’s biographies and the unusual nature of the fictitious “sport” thematized in the story.