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Shakespeare’s Use of the ‘Timon’ Comedy
- Edited by Kenneth Muir
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- Book:
- Shakespeare Survey
- Published online:
- 28 March 2007
- Print publication:
- 07 October 1976, pp 103-116
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Summary
Timon of Athens, fraught with inconsistencies and long regarded as unfinished, has been of particular interest to scholars who believe that finding the right source will resolve all its inherent problems. These scholars inevitably have cited either Plutarch's Life of Antony or Lucian's dialogue Misanthropos as the principle source through which the play ought to be approached; and their interpretations have alternated between the extremes of romantic tragedy and bitter satire. In a recent article I suggested that the MS Timon comedy, long discounted as a source because of its academic quality and because there was no significant evidence that it was ever performed, probably was performed c. 1602 at the Inns of Court, where Shakespeare could easily have seen it. I propose to examine in this paper, therefore, the comedy as a possible source for Timon of Athens, and to suggest some ideas Shakespeare may have gleaned from it.
Shakespeare had used North's translation (from the French of Amyot) of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, published in 1579, as the major source for Julius Caesar as early as 1599, and as a minor source for even earlier plays. The fact that he used it extensively again for his two later Roman plays has encouraged critics to regard Timon of Athens as a play written at the same time, c. 1607; for he undoubtedly knew the brief sketch of Timon which comes at the end of the Life of Antony, and turned to it for details.
The Date and Production of ‘Timon’ Reconsidered
- Edited by Kenneth Muir
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- Book:
- Shakespeare Survey
- Published online:
- 28 March 2007
- Print publication:
- 05 December 1974, pp 111-128
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Summary
The comedy known as the ‘old Timon’ is of interest largely because of its possible connection with Timon of Athens. Numerous similarities between the two plays have been traced to Lucian’s dialogue Misanthropos: Timon’s extravagant spending; his payment of a friend’s debt to release the friend from prison; his loss of wealth and subsequent discovery of gold in the earth; the reappearance of his parasitic friends to feign generosity when he no longer needs it; his driving them away with a spade; and the final implication that his prodigality was unwise and his choice of friends, indiscriminate. All these similarities suggest that both Shakespeare and the anonymous author (or authors; the MS., written in alternating Italian and Secretary hands, indicates that the play may have been a collaboration) had either direct or indirect access to Lucian.
But the two plays have a number of similarities which cannot be accounted for by their sharing of a source - neither Lucian, nor Plutarch, nor any Renaissance treatment of the Timon legend.3 Among these similarities are a strong emphasis on Timon in prosperity (three acts in each play); scenes in which his parasitic friends refuse to reciprocate his generosity; a mock-banquet at which Timon, destitute, rails at them (he pelts them with stones painted as artichokes in Timon; in Timon of Athens, stones undisguised); and the presence of a faithful steward who remonstrates against his extravagance, follows him into exile, and helps him to drive off the parasites.