Timon of Athens
Encyclopedia
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
about the fortunes of an Athenian
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
named Timon
Timon of Athens (person)
Timon of Athens was a citizen of Athens whose reputation for misanthropy grew to legendary status. According to the historian Plutarch, Timon lived during the era of the Peloponnesian War .-Overview:...
(and probably influenced by the philosopher
Timon (philosopher)
Timon of Phlius was a Greek skeptic philosopher, a pupil of Pyrrho, and a celebrated writer of satirical poems called Silloi . He was born in Phlius, moved to Megara, and then he returned home and married. He next went to Elis with his wife, and heard Pyrrho, whose tenets he adopted...
of the same name, as well), generally regarded as one of his most obscure and difficult works. Originally grouped with the tragedies, it is generally considered such, but some scholars group it with the problem plays
Problem plays (Shakespeare)
In Shakespeare studies, the term problem plays normally refers to three plays that William Shakespeare wrote between the late 1590s and the first years of the seventeenth century: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida, although some critics would extend the term to...
.
Characters
- TimonTimon of Athens (person)Timon of Athens was a citizen of Athens whose reputation for misanthropy grew to legendary status. According to the historian Plutarch, Timon lived during the era of the Peloponnesian War .-Overview:...
(ˈtaɪmən ): a lord of Athens. - Alcibiades ælsɨˈbaɪ.ədiːz): Captain of a military brigade and good friend to Timon.
- ApemantusApemantusApemantus is a character in the play Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare. He is a cynical and misanthropic philosopher.-Role in the play:...
, sometimes spelled Apermantus, a philosopher and churl. - Flavius is Timon's chief Steward.
- Flaminius is one of Timon's servants.
- Servilius is another of Timon's servants.
- Lucilius is a romantic youth and Timon's servant.
- Ventidius, also spelled "Ventidgius" is one of Timon's "friends", and in debtors' prison.
- Lucullus is Timon's "friend".
- Lucius, Timon's "friend"
- Sempronius is Timon's most jealous "friend".
- Poet and Painter are friends; artists who seek Timon's patronage.
- Jeweller and Merchant appear briefly
- The Senators of Athens.
- The FoolCourt jesterA jester, joker, jokester, fool, wit-cracker, prankster, or buffoon was a person employed to tell jokes and provide general entertainment, typically for a European monarch. Jesters are stereotypically thought to have worn brightly colored clothes and eccentric hats in a motley pattern...
is briefly a companion to Apemantus. - Three Strangers, one named Hostilius; friends to Lucius.
- The Old Athenian is the father of the woman Lucilius loves.
- Four Lords. False friends of Timon.
- Servants to Timon, Lucullus, Lucius, Varro
- Timon's creditors – Isidore, Varro, Titus, Hortensius, Philotus
- Banditti, Soldier, Page, Cupid and Ladies at the Masque.
Synopsis
Timon is not initially a misanthropeMisanthropy
Misanthropy is generalized dislike, distrust, disgust, contempt or hatred of the human species or human nature. A misanthrope, or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings...
. He is a wealthy and generous Athenian gentleman. He gives a large banquet, attended by nearly all the main characters. Timon gives away money wastefully, and everyone wants to please him to get more, except for Apemantus, a churlish philosopher whose cynicism
Cynicism
Cynicism , in its original form, refers to the beliefs of an ancient school of Greek philosophers known as the Cynics . Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and...
Timon cannot yet appreciate. He accepts art from Poet and Painter, and a jewel from the Jeweller, but by the end of Act 1, he has given that away to another friend. Timon's servant, Lucilius, has been wooing the daughter of an old Athenian. The man is angry, but Timon pays him three talents in exchange for the couple being allowed to marry, because the happiness of his servant is worth the price. Timon is told that his friend, Ventidius, is in debtors' prison. He sends money to pay Ventidius's debt, and Ventidius is released and joins the banquet. Timon gives a speech on the value of friendship. The guests are entertained by a masque, followed by dancing. As the party winds down, Timon continues to give things away to his friends; his horses, and other possessions. The act is divided rather arbitrarily into two scenes but the experimental and/or unfinished nature of the play is reflected in that it does not naturally break into a five-act structure.
Timon has given away all his wealth. Flavius, Timon's steward, is upset by the way Timon has spent his wealth–overextending his munificence by showering patronage
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...
on the parasitic writers and artists, and delivering his dubious friends from their financial straits. He tells Timon so when he returns from a hunt. Timon is upset that he has not been told this before, and begins to vent his anger on Flavius, who tells him that he has tried repeatedly in the past without success, and now he is at the end; all Timon's land has been sold. Shadowing Timon is another guest at the banquet; the cynical philosopher Apemantus, who terrorises Timon's shallow companions with his caustic raillery. He was the only guest not angling for money or possessions from Timon. Along with a Fool, he attacks Timon's creditors when they show up to make their demands for immediate payment. Timon cannot pay, and sends out his servants to make requests for help from those friends he considers closest.
Timon's servants are turned down, one by one, by Timon's false friends, two giving lengthy monologues as to their anger with them. Elsewhere, one of Alcibiades's junior officers has reached an even further point of rage, killing a man in "hot blood." Alcibiades pleads with the Senate for mercy, arguing that a crime of passion
Crime of passion
A crime of passion, or crime passionnel, in popular usage, refers to a crime in which the perpetrator commits a crime, especially assault or murder, against someone because of sudden strong impulse such as sudden rage or heartbreak rather than as a premeditated crime...
should not carry as severe a sentence as premeditated murder
Premeditated murder
Premeditated murder is the crime of wrongfully causing the death of another human being after rationally considering the timing or method of doing so, in order to either increase the likelihood of success, or to evade detection or apprehension.State laws in the United States vary as to definitions...
. The senators disagree, and when Alcibiades persists, banish him forever. He vows revenge, with the support of his troops. The act finishes with Timon discussing with his servants the revenge he will carry out at his next banquet.
Timon has a much smaller party, intended only for those he feels have betrayed him. The serving trays are brought in, but under them the friends find not a feast, but rocks and lukewarm water. Timon sprays them with the water, throws the dishes at them, and flees his home. The loyal Flavius vows to find him.
Cursing the city walls, Timon goes into the wilderness and makes his crude home in a cave, sustaining himself on roots. Here he discovers an underground trove of gold. The knowledge of this spreads. Alcibiades, Apemantus, and three bandits are able to find Timon before Flavius does. He offers most of the gold to the rebel Alcibiades to subsidise his assault on the city, which he now wants to see destroyed, as his experiences have reduced him to misanthropy. He gives the rest to his whores to spread disease, and much of the remainder to Poet and Painter, who arrive soon after, leaving little left for the senators who visit him. Accompanying Alcibiades are two prostitutes, Phrynia and Timandra, who trade barbs with the bitter Timon on the subject of venereal disease. When Apemantus appears and accuses Timon of copying his pessimistic style, the audience is treated to the spectacle of a mutually misanthropic exchange of invective.
Flavius arrives. He wants the money as well, but he also wants Timon to come back into society. Timon acknowledges that he has had one true friend in Flavius, a shining example of an otherwise diseased and impure race, but laments that this man is a mere servant. He invites the last envoys from Athens, who hoped Timon might placate Alcibiades, to go hang themselves, and then dies in the wilderness. Alcibiades, marching on Athens, then throws down his glove, and ends the play reading the bitter epitaph Timon wrote for himself, part of which was composed by Callimachus
Callimachus
Callimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...
:
"Here lies a wretched corpse of wretched soul bereft:
Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiff
Caitiff
Caitiff may mean:* a galley-slave in a Barbary bagnio* a Camarilla clanless character in Caitiff * A bandit in the Kingdom of Wu, pacified by generals such as Zhou Tai...
s left!"
Here lie I, Timon, who alive, all living men did hate,
Pass by, and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait."
Date and text
The play has caused considerable debate among scholars. It is oddly constructed, with several lacunaeLacuna (manuscripts)
A lacunaPlural lacunae. From Latin lacūna , diminutive form of lacus . is a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work...
(gaps) and for this reason is often described as unfinished
Unfinished work
An unfinished work is creative work that has not been finished. Its creator may have chosen never to finish it or may have been prevented from doing so by circumstances outside of their control such as death. Such pieces are often the subject of speculation as to what the finished piece would have...
, multi-authored, and/or experimental
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
. No precise date of composition can be given and, while most place it as close but prior to the late romances
Shakespeare's late romances
The late romances, often simply called the romances, are a grouping of what many scholars believe to be William Shakespeare's later plays, including Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Cymbeline; The Winter's Tale; and The Tempest. The Two Noble Kinsmen is sometimes included in this grouping...
, theories posited have ranged broadly from Shakespeare's first work to his last. It is usually grouped with the tragedies (as in the First Folio
First Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....
), though some scholars have placed it with the problem comedies
Problem plays (Shakespeare)
In Shakespeare studies, the term problem plays normally refers to three plays that William Shakespeare wrote between the late 1590s and the first years of the seventeenth century: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida, although some critics would extend the term to...
despite the death of its title character. Source material includes Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
's "Life of Alcibiades" and Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
's dialogue, Timon the Misanthrope. The play had not been published prior to its inclusion in the First Folio
First Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....
(1623).
Collaboration
Since the nineteenth century, suggestions have been made that Timon is the work of two writers, and it has been argued that the play's unusual features are the result of the play being co-authored by playwrights with very different mentalities; the most popular candidate, Thomas MiddletonThomas Middleton
Thomas Middleton was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as among the most successful and prolific of playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in...
, was first suggested in 1920. A 1917 study by John Mackinnon Robertson posited that George Chapman
George Chapman
George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets...
wrote "A Lover's Complaint
A Lover's Complaint
A Lover's Complaint is a narrative poem published as an appendix to the original edition of Shakespeare's sonnets. It is given the title 'A Lover's Complaint' in the book, which was published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609...
" and was the originator of Timon of Athens. These claims were rejected by other commentators, including Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, Frank Harris
Frank Harris
Frank Harris was a Irish-born, naturalized-American author, editor, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day...
, and Rolf Soellner, who claimed that the play was a theatrical experiment. They argued that if one playwright revised another's play it would have been "fixed" to the standards of Jacobean theatre, which is clearly not the case. Soellner believed the play is unusual because it was written to be performed at the Inns of Court
Inns of Court
The Inns of Court in London are the professional associations for barristers in England and Wales. All such barristers must belong to one such association. They have supervisory and disciplinary functions over their members. The Inns also provide libraries, dining facilities and professional...
, where it would have found a niche audience with young lawyers.
In the past three decades, several linguistic analyses of the text have all discovered apparent confirmation of the theory that Middleton wrote much of the play. It contains numerous words, phrases and punctuation choices that are common in the work of Middleton and rare in Shakespeare. These linguistic markers cluster in certain scenes, apparently indicating that the play is a collaboration between Middleton and Shakespeare, not a revision of one's work by the other. The evidence suggests that Middleton wrote around one third of the play, mostly the central scenes. The editor of the Oxford edition, John Jowett, states that Middleton,
wrote the banquet scene, the central scene with Timon's creditors and Alcibiades' confrontation with the senate, and most of the episodes concerning the Steward. The play's abrasively harsh humour and its depiction of social relationships that involve a denial of personal relationships are Middletonian traits.Jowett stresses that Middleton's presence does not mean the play should be disregarded, stating "Timon of Athens is all the more interesting because the text articulates a dialogue between two dramatists of a very different temper."
Themes and motifs
Major motifs in the Shakespearean play include dogs, breath, gold (from Act IV on), and "use" in reference to usuryUsury
Usury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...
(so called because it takes payment for the "use" of money). One of the most common emendations of the play is the Poet's line "Our Poesie Is as a Gowne, which uses From whence 'tis nourisht," to "our poesy is as a gum, which oozes from whence 'tis nourished" (originated by Pope and Johnson). Soellner says that such emendations erode the importance of this motif, and suggests a better emendation would be "from" to "form," creating a mixed metaphor "revelatory of the poet's inanity."
One odd emendation that often appears near the end of the play is Alcibiades commanding his troops to "cull th' infected fourth" from the Senate, as if he intends to destroy a fourth of the Senate. The word in the folio
First Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....
is, in fact, "forth," suggesting that "th' infected" are simply the ones who argued strongly against the cases of Timon and Alicibiades's officer, and that the troops are to leave alone those who just went along with it.
Banquets and Feasting
Banquets and feasting in Shakespeare are dramatically significant; besides sometimes being of central and structural importance, they often present dramatic spectacles in themselves. The first banquet of Timon of Athens reflects contemporary understandings of lavish Athenian entertainment at which Timon celebrates friendship and society. All the citizens are welcome to the banquet, as in accordance with the democratic principles of Athens. The second banquet functions as a parody of the first, as Timon uses it to exact revenge on his false friends, before abandoning feasting and the city completely by exiling himself. The senses are absent from this feast: Timon mocks the insatiable appetite of his guests as he uncovers dishes of smoke and water. Timon is misled by facades of friendship, and so inflicts apropos revenge: misleading those that had misled him by having them suffer the disillusionment of mortal senses with the mere spectacle of a banquet.Feasting had political importance both in Ancient Greece and early modern England. The accession of James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
, however, brought to it a new level of hedonism. Excessive and riotous pageantry and feasting stirred anxiety about man's unbridled appetite and difficulty in keeping desire in check. It is likely that Shakespeare’s audience would have been influenced in their perception of feasts by the religious precept of penitence. Fasting was a key feature of penitent behaviour.
Two Biblical banquets in particular resound in the language and themes of the play. The story of the Last Supper
Last Supper
The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...
offers a model for sociable eating which unites and yet anticipates betrayal. The story of the Prodigal Son, on the other hand, serves to illuminate the moral ambiguities of gluttony and excessive feasting.
Shakespeare includes the character of Alcibiades, in the play, the ultimate redeemer of iniquitous Athens. He would have been known among the educated of the audience for his presence at the Greek banquet in Plato’s Symposium at which he gets the last word on the nature of love, proposing that it cannot be found in superficial appearance.
Robert Weimann notes how the stage directions in the play inform us that the men of elevated status sit down at the main table in the middle of the stage, but Timon orders Apemantus to sit at a table by himself downstage from the main table. From this positioning, a contrast is created between Timon and his guests giving eloquent speeches from the area around the table and Apemantus who is situated so as the audience can hear him, but the other characters behind him cannot. He instructs us to “Look at them, and at what their feasting really means.” His remarks comment critically on the pomp and ceremony without destroying the theatrical effect of the banquet itself. The dual perspective that results acknowledges the sensuous attraction of a dazzling theatrical occasion, but also penetrates the showy surface; for in it there is “a huge zest for life and the moral strength to see through it its glitter, its hypocrisies, its shame and its rewards.”
Feasting in Timon of Athens illustrates a tension between individual desire and common humanity, and the interdependence of good self-government and good social government. Eating together can act as social bonding; sharing food reinforces community and is often celebratory. However, individual and selfish appetites can also break down the relationships between man and man.
Performance history
“Timon of Athens” is believed to have first been performed between 1607 and 1608, whereas the text is believed to have first been printed in 1623 as a part of the First FolioFirst Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....
.
Licensed, 18 Feb.. 1677/8. Ro. L'Estrange
Roger L'Estrange
Sir Roger L'Estrange was an English pamphleteer and author, and staunch defender of royalist claims. L'Estrange was involved in political controversy throughout his life...
. LONDON, Printed by J. M. for Henry Herringman, at the Blue Anchor, in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1678.
Performance history in Shakespeare's lifetime is unknown, though the same is also true of his more highly regarded plays such as Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony...
and Coriolanus
Coriolanus (play)
Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader, Gaius Marcius Coriolanus.-Characters:*Caius Martius, later surnamed Coriolanus...
, which most scholars believe were written in the same period. The play's date is uncertain, though its bitter tone links it with Coriolanus and King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
. John Day
John Day (dramatist)
John Day was an English dramatist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.-Life:He was born at Cawston, Norfolk, and educated at Ely. He became a sizar of Caius College, Cambridge, in 1592, but was expelled in the next year for stealing a book...
's play Humour Out of Breath, published in 1608, contains a reference to "the lord that gave all to his followers, and begged more for himself" – a possible allusion to Timon that would, if valid, support a date of composition before 1608. It has been proposed that Shakespeare himself took the role of the Poet, who has the fifth-largest line count in the play.
In 1678 Thomas Shadwell
Thomas Shadwell
Thomas Shadwell was an English poet and playwright who was appointed poet laureate in 1689.-Life:Shadwell was born at Stanton Hall, Norfolk, and educated at Bury St Edmunds School, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1656. He left the university without a degree, and...
produced a popular adaptation, The History of Timon of Athens, the Man-Hater, to which Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
later composed the music. Shadwell added two women to the plot: Melissa, Timon's faithless fiancee, and Evandre, his loyal and discarded mistress. James Dance made another adaptation in 1768, soon followed by Richard Cumberland
Richard Cumberland (dramatist)
Richard Cumberland was a British dramatist and civil servant. In 1771 his hit play The West Indian was first staged. During the American War of Independence he acted as a secret negotiator with Spain in an effort to secure a peace agreement between the two nations. He also edited a short-lived...
's version at Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
in 1771, in which the dying Timon gives his daughter Evadne, not present in Shakespeare's original, to Alcibiades. Further adaptations followed in 1786 (Thomas Hull's at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
) and 1816 (George Lamb's at Drury Lane), ending with an 1851 production reinstating Shakespeare's original text by Samuel Phelps
Samuel Phelps
Samuel Phelps was an English actor and theatre manager...
at Sadler's Wells
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue located in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive...
.
It has played once on Broadway, in 1993, with Brian Bedford
Brian Bedford
Brian Bedford is an English actor. He has appeared on the stage and in film, and is known for both acting in and directing Shakespeare.-Life and career:...
in the title role. This was a production of The Public Theater, which revived the play in February 2011, citing it as a play for the Great Recession.
Literary versions
Peter BrookPeter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
directed a French language production in the sixties in which Timon was portrayed as an innocent idealist in a white tuxedo, ripped and dishevelled in the second part. His cast was primarily young, and Apemantus was Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
n. Commentators who admire the play typically see Timon as intended to have been a young man behaving in a naïve way. The play's detractors usually cite an oblique reference to armour in Act IV as evidence that Timon is a long-retired soldier.
Literary allusions
Vladimir NabokovVladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
borrowed the title for his novel Pale Fire
Pale Fire
Pale Fire is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional John Shade, with a foreword and lengthy commentary by a neighbor and academic colleague of the poet. Together these elements form a narrative in which both authors are...
from this quote of Timon's in Act IV, Scene III:
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction /
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief, /
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun...
A copy of Timon of Athens features variously in the plot of Pale Fire
Pale Fire
Pale Fire is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional John Shade, with a foreword and lengthy commentary by a neighbor and academic colleague of the poet. Together these elements form a narrative in which both authors are...
and, at one point, the quotation above is amusingly mistranslated from the fictional language of Zemblan, a trademark prank of the polyglot
Polyglot (person)
A polyglot is someone with a high degree of proficiency in several languages. A bilingual person can speak two languages fluently, whereas a trilingual three; above that the term multilingual may be used.-Hyperpolyglot:...
Nabokov. The theme of thievery to which Timon is alluding is also a principal theme of Pale Fire
Pale Fire
Pale Fire is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional John Shade, with a foreword and lengthy commentary by a neighbor and academic colleague of the poet. Together these elements form a narrative in which both authors are...
, referring to Charles Kinbote
Charles Kinbote
Charles Kinbote is the unreliable narrator in Vladimir Nabokov's novel Pale Fire.-Academic work:Kinbote appears to be the scholarly author of the Foreword, Commentary and Index surrounding the text of the late John Shade's poem "Pale Fire", which together form the text of Nabokov's novel...
's misappropriation of the poem by the deceased John Shade
John Shade
John Shade is a fictional character in Vladimir Nabokov's 1962 novel Pale Fire.-Shade and family:The structure is notoriously difficult to unravel, but most readers agree that Shade is a poet married to his teenage sweetheart, Sybil. Their only child, a daughter named Hazel, apparently committed...
that forms part of the novel's structure.
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
alludes to Timon in Great Expectations
Great Expectations
Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times....
when Wopsle moves to London to pursue a life in the theatre.
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
includes an allusion to Timon in Villette
Villette
-Places:Villette or La Villette is the name or part of the name of several places in Europe:-France:*Villette, in the Meurthe-et-Moselle département*Villette, in the Yvelines département*Villette-d'Anthon, in the Isère département...
. Ginevra Fanshawe affectionately nicknames Lucy "Timon," which highlights Ginevra's role as a foil for Lucy.
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
alludes to Timon in his short story, "The Three Strangers."
Australian novelist Robert Gott takes the title for his third William Power mystery, Amongst the Dead, from Act I of Timon of Athens:
". . . Alcibiades /
Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich /
It comes a charity to thee, for all thy living /
Is 'mongst the dead, and all the land thou hast /
Lies in a pitched field."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
alludes to Timon in Essays: Second Series (1844) in an essay entitled "Gifts." Emerson says,
"This giving is flat usurpation, and therefore when the beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons...I rather sympathize with the beneficiary, than with the anger of my lord Timon."
Danish author Karen Blixen
Karen Blixen
Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke , , née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author also known by her pen name Isak Dinesen. She also wrote under the pen names Osceola and Pierre Andrézel...
(Isak Dinesen) has a story within the tale titled "The Deluge of Norderney" in her Seven Gothic Tales. It tells about a Hamlet-like figure, called Timon of Assens [sic] who comes from the Danish town of Assens.
In Art
The English artist and writer Wyndham LewisWyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...
produced one work of art, a portfolio of drawings titled "Timon of Athens" (1913), a preliminary example of the style of art that would come to be called Vorticist. Like Timon, Lewis's own life was shaped by a war, a reputation for misanthropy, and alienation from his peer group. In this respect the work may be seen as a self-portrait of sorts, albeit one that utilises the fractured aesthetic of early-20th century avant-garde painting.
Musical versions
Shadwell's adaptation of the play was first performed with music by Louis GrabuLouis Grabu
Louis Grabu, Grabut, Grabue, or Grebus was a Catalan-born, French-trained composer and violinist who was mainly active in England....
in 1678. More famously, the 1695 revival had new music by Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
, most of it appearing in the masque
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
that ended Act Two. Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
was commissioned to compose original music for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's first production of Timon of Athens in 1963. Stephen Oliver, who wrote the incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for the BBC television version, composed a two-act opera, Timon of Athens, which was first performed at the Coliseum, London, on 17 May 1991. Singer/songwriter Ben Patton wrote and recorded a song named "Timon of Athens" in 2006 which is included on his album Because the Heart.
Play Adaptations
British playwright Glyn CannonGlyn Cannon
Glyn Cannon is a British playwright.His plays include; Coffee , The Kiss and Gone, a modern adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone that was first produced at the Pleasance Courtyard for the 2004 Edinburgh fringe festival. It won a Fringe First award from The Scotsman and transferred to the West End...
wrote a short adaptation of the play called Timon's Daughter. It premiered in May, 2008 at the Old Fitzroy Theatre in Sydney. Cannon's play revisits the major themes of charity
Charity (virtue)
In Christian theology charity, or love , means an unlimited loving-kindness toward all others.The term should not be confused with the more restricted modern use of the word charity to mean benevolent giving.- Caritas: altruistic love :...
and giving in the original work, with a story that follows the adventures of Timon's daughter (named "Alice" in Cannon's play) when she is taken in by Flavius (renamed "Alan").
Television versions
Rarely performed, Timon was produced for TV as part of the BBC Television ShakespeareBBC Television Shakespeare
The BBC Television Shakespeare was a set of television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, produced by the BBC between 1978 and 1985.-Origins:...
series in 1981 with Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
as Timon, Norman Rodway
Norman Rodway
-Early life:Rodway was born in Dublin to English parents, Frank and Lillian Rodway. He studied classics, graduating at Trinity College. He worked as an accountant, teacher, and university lecturer before acting.-Career:...
as Apemantus, John Welsh
John Welsh (actor)
John Welsh was an Irish actor.After an early stage career in Dublin, Welsh moved into British film and television in the 1950s. His roles included James Forsyte in the 1967 BBC dramatisation of John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga, as well as the butler Merriman in The Duchess of Duke Street, Sgt...
as Flavius, and John Shrapnel
John Shrapnel
John Shrapnel is an English actor.Shrapnel was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, the son of Mary Lillian Myfanwy and journalist/author Norman Shrapnel....
as Alcibiades, with Diana Dors
Diana Dors
Diana Dors was an English actress, born Diana Mary Fluck in Swindon, Wiltshire. Considered the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood, Dors described herself as: "The only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva."-Early life:Diana Mary Fluck was born in Swindon,...
as Timandra, Tony Jay
Tony Jay
Tony Jay was an English actor, voice actor and singer. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was known for his voice work in animation, film and computer games. Jay's distinctive baritone voice often landed him villainous roles...
as the Merchant, Sebastian Shaw
Sebastian Shaw (actor)
Sebastian Lewis Shaw was an English actor, director, novelist, playwright and poet. During his 65-year career, Shaw appeared in dozens of stage performances and more than 40 film and television productions....
as the Old Athenian, and John Fortune
John Fortune
John Fortune is a British satirist, comedian writer and actor, best known for his work with John Bird and Rory Bremner on the TV series Bremner, Bird and Fortune. He was educated at Bristol Cathedral School and King's College, Cambridge, where he was to meet and form a lasting friendship with John...
and John Bird
John Bird (actor)
John Bird is an English satirist, actor and comedian.-Early life:Born in Bulwell, Nottingham, England, and educated at High Pavement Grammar School, Nottingham, Bird briefly joined the Socialist Party of Great Britain, while still at school...
as Poet and Painter. The production, directed by Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...
is done in Jacobean dress rather than in Greek costuming, but Shakespeare's Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
in this play is as fictional as his Illyria
Illyria
In classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....
.
Books
In the Gary BlackwoodGary Blackwood
Gary Blackwood, born on October 23, 1945 in Meadville, Pennsylvania, is an American author of popular books for young readers including The Shakespeare Stealer, Shakespeare's Scribe, and Shakespeare's Spy.-Works:...
book Shakespeare's Spy, the main character Widge writes the play trying to impress Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's daughter Judith. He is given the play by Shakespeare and Widge rewrites the play using Athenians
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
rather than Catholics, which is what the play is originally about in the book.
Critical response
Many scholars find much unfinished about this play including unexplained plot developments, characters who appear unexplained and say little, prose sections that a polished version would have in verse (although close analysis would show this to be almost exclusively in the lines of Apemantus, and probably an intentional character trait), and the two epitaphs, one of which doubtless would have been cancelled in the final version. However, similar duplications appear in Julius CaesarJulius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
and Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s, and first published in 1598.-Title:...
and are generally thought to be examples of two versions being printed when only one was ultimately used in production, which could easily be the case here. Frank Kermode refers to the play as "a poor relation of the major tragedies." This is the majority view, but the play has many scholarly defenders as well. Nevertheless, and perhaps unsurprisingly due to its subject matter, it has not proven to be among Shakespeare's popular works.
An anonymous play, Timon, also survives. Its Timon is explicitly hedonistic and spends his money much more on himself than in Shakespeare's version. He also has a mistress
Mistress (lover)
A mistress is a long-term female lover and companion who is not married to her partner; the term is used especially when her partner is married. The relationship generally is stable and at least semi-permanent; however, the couple does not live together openly. Also the relationship is usually,...
. It mentions a London inn called The Seven Stars that did not exist before 1602, yet it contains elements that are in Shakespeare's play but not in Plutarch or in Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
's dialogue, Timon the Misanthrope, the other major accepted source for Shakespeare's play. Both Jacobean plays deal extensively with Timon's life before his flight into the wilderness, which in both Greek versions is given little more than one sentence each.
Soellner argues that the play is equal parts tragedy and satire, but that neither term can adequately be used as an adjective, for it is first and foremost a tragedy, and it does not satirise tragedy; rather, it satirises its subjects in the manner of Juvenalian satire while simultaneously being a tragedy.
Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
considered Timon to be among the most profound of Shakespeare's plays, and in his 1850 review "Hawthorne and His Mosses
Hawthorne and His Mosses
"Hawthorne and His Mosses" is an essay and critical review of the short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse written by Herman Melville in 1850. Published anonymously by "a Virginian spending July in Vermont", it appeared in the New York Literary World magazine in two issues: August 17 and...
" writes that Shakespeare is not "a mere man of Richard-the-Third humps, and Macbeth daggers," but rather "it is those deep far-away things in him; those occasional flashings-forth of the intuitive Truth in him; those short, quick probings at the very axis of reality:–these are the things that make Shakespeare, Shakespeare. Through the mouths of the dark characters of Hamlet, Timon, Lear, and Iago, he craftily says, or sometimes insinuates the things, which we feel to be so terrifically true, that it were all but madness for any good man, in his own proper character, to utter, or even hint of them." In his 1590 Greene's Mourning Garment, Robert Greene used the term "Timonist" to refer to a lonely misanthrope. In his 1852 novel Pierre
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities is a novel written by Herman Melville, and published in 1852 by Harper & Brothers.The publication of Pierre was a critical and financial disaster for Melville. It was universally condemned for both its morals and its style...
, Melville used the term "Timonism" about an artist's contemptuous rejection of both his audience and mankind in general.
Appreciation of the play often pivots on the reader's perception of Timon's asceticism
Asceticism
Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...
. Admirers like Soellner point out that Shakespeare's text has Timon neither drink wine nor eat meat: only water and root
Root
In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial or aerating . Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either...
s are specifically mentioned as being in his diet, which is also true of Apemantus, the philosopher. If one sees Timon's parties not as libations but as vain attempts to genuinely win friends among his peers, he gains sympathy. This is true of Pryce's Timon in the television version mentioned above, whose plate is explicitly shown as being perpetually unsoiled by food, and he tends to be meek and modest. This suggests a Timon who lives in the world but not of it. Other versions, often by creators who regard the play as a lesser work, involve jazz-era swinging (sometimes, such as in the Michael Langham
Michael Langham
Michael Langham was an English actor and director, who spent much of his career living and working in Canada and the United States....
/Brian Bedford
Brian Bedford
Brian Bedford is an English actor. He has appeared on the stage and in film, and is known for both acting in and directing Shakespeare.-Life and career:...
production (in which Timon eats flamingo
Flamingo
Flamingos or flamingoes are gregarious wading birds in the genus Phoenicopterus , the only genus in the family Phoenicopteridae...
) set to a score that Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
composed for it in the 1960s), and conclude the first act with a debauchery. The Arkangel Shakespeare
Arkangel Shakespeare
The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare is a notable series of unabridged audio drama presentations of all 38 plays of William Shakespeare, released from 1998 onwards on cassette and then CD...
audio recording featuring Alan Howard
Alan Howard
Alan MacKenzie Howard, CBE, is an English actor known for his roles on stage, television and film.He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1966 to 1983, and played leading roles at the Royal National Theatre between 1992 and 2000.-Personal life:Howard is the only son of the actor...
(with Rodway reprising his television role) also takes this route: Howard's line readings suggest that Timon is getting drunker and drunker during the first act; he does not represent the moral or idealistic figure betrayed by the petty perceived by Soellner and Brecht the way Pryce does.
External links
- Timon of Athens – Searchable version of the text