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THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENSContents:
WE know no more of Timon of Athens than we can deduce from the text printed in the 1623 Folio. Some episodes, such as the emblematic opening dialogue featuring a Poet and a Painter, are elegantly finished, but the play has more unpolished dialogue and loose ends of plot than usual: for example, the episode (3.6) in which Alcibiades pleads for a soldier’s life is only tenuously related to the main structure; and the final stretch of action seems imperfectly worked out. Various theories of collaboration and revision have been advanced to explain the play’s peculiarities. During the 1970s and 1980s strong linguistic and other evidence has been adduced in support of the belief that it is a product of collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton, a dramatist born in 1580 and educated at Queen’s College, Oxford, who was writing for the stage by 1602 and was to develop into a great playwright. The major passages for which Middleton seems to have taken prime responsibility are Act 1, Scene 2; all of Act 3 except for parts of Scene 7; and the closing episode (4.3.460-537) of Act 4. The theory of collaboration explains some features of the text — Middleton’s verse, for example, was less regular than Shakespeare’s. There is no record of early performance; the play is conjecturally assigned to 1604. The story of Timon was well known and had been told in an anonymous play which seems to have been acted at one of the Inns of Court in 1602 or 1603; Middleton has even been suggested as its author. The classical sources of Timon’s story are a brief, anecdotal passage in Plutarch’s Life of Mark Antony, and a Greek dialogue by Lucian, who wrote during the second century AD; the former was certainly known to the authors of Timon of Athens; the latter influences them directly or indirectly. Plutarch records two epitaphs, one written by Timon himself, which recur, conflated as one epitaph, almost word for word in the play. In Lucian, as in the play, Timon is a misanthrope because his friends flattered and sponged on him in prosperity but abandoned him in poverty. The first part of the play dramatizes this process; in the second part, as in Lucian, Timon finds gold and suddenly becomes attractive again to his old friends. Timon of Athens is an exceptionally schematic play falling into two sharply contrasting parts, the second a kind of mirror image of the first. Many of the characters are presented two-dimensionally, as if the dramatists were more concerned with the play’s pattern of ideas than with psychological realism. The overall tone is harsh and bitter; there are passages of magnificent invective along with some brilliant satire, but there is also tenderness in the portrayal of Timon’s servants, especially his ‘one honest man’, Flavius. In the play’s comparatively rare performances some adaptation has usually been found necessary; but the exceptionally long role of Timon offers great opportunities to an actor who can convey his vulnerability as well as his virulence, especially in the strange music of the closing scenes which suggests in him a vision beyond the ordinary.
TIMON of Athens A POET A PAINTER A JEWELLER A MERCHANT A Mercer LUCILIUS, one of Timon’s servants An OLD ATHENIAN LORDS and SENATORS of Athens VENTIDIUS, one of Timon’s false friends ALCIBIADES, an Athenian captain APEMANTUS, a churlish philosopher One dressed as CUPID in the masque LADIES dressed as Amazons in the masque FLAVIUS, Timon’s steward FLAMINIUS } SERVILIUS } Timon’s servants Other SERVANTS of Timon A FOOL A PAGE CAPHIS } ISIDORE’S SERVANT } servants to Timon’s creditors Two of VARRO’S SERVANTS } LUCULLUS } LUCIUS } flattering lords SEMPRONIUS } LUCULLUS’ SERVANT LUCIUS’ SERVANT Three STRANGERS, one called Hostilius TITUS’ SERVANT } HORTENSIUS’ SERVANT } other servants to Timon’s creditors PHILOTUS’ SERVANT } PHRYNIA } TIMANDRA } whores with Alcibiades The banditti, THIEVES SOLDIER of Alcibiades’ army Messengers, attendants, soldiers
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