Timon of Athens

An uneven and incomplete play, failing to find either thematic juice or dramatic zest, Timon of Athens is, because of these middling qualities, sometimes excused as a collaboration between Shakespeare and one of his less-talented peers. Interestingly, the Introduction to the Arden edition I read disregards this theory, instead seeing Timon as a project that Shakespeare drafted but found too difficult to work up into a genuine, workable piece of drama.

And no wonder: there's no natural charm in a protagonist who is, first, a sucker for benefactors and unwittingly gives all his money away to shameless supplicants, and then, secondly, having fallen low due to his errors, becomes a bitter and unrepentant misanthrope. Despite a few moments show more that stir, such as Timon's initial eloquent invective against the low-grade temper of much of mankind, the concept has no natural structure or dramatic beats that emerge. Even a writer of genius like Shakespeare struggles to find them. It's a seed that proves to be a stone.

With this in mind, my Arden edition's claim that Timon was a Shakespeare attempt that ended up screwed up in the Tudor equivalent of a wastepaper basket not only becomes more plausible, but even appealing. The thought of the great Bard of the English language hitting the buffers, revising character motivations, reshaping scenes and working drafted lines up into iambic pentameter, is an interesting one. Shakespeare at his desk, labouring on a doomed WIP, is more fascinating to imagine than any reading of the actual play of Timon of Athens brings, but it does give the experience some worth. show less

Of all his plays, this is probably the most maligned, it being perhaps a collaboration with Middleton, but any way you look at it, it is a striking piece.

The simple plot gives way to wild passions and simple fortunes and some of the broadest brush strokes I've ever seen. It's also as stark as death.

From great fortune and flatterers surrounding him, Timon is the absolute Good Man who gives away all his fortune to hear the praise of assholes. When he loses it all and asks for help from all his so called friends, they spit in his eye. He goes mad, hating all mankind and goes to live as the basest beggar, wildly exhorting all comers to do evil upon everyone else, to break and spite and die.

Finding fortune under his feet, even as he's show more digging tubers to eat, serves him nothing at all. He hates, and gives away his wealth to old friends who happened upon him, to whores, thieves, and lickspittles, all to just get rid of them.

The bile from Timon's mouth is pretty awesome. The man has gone from pure goodness to pure rageful spite overnight, and one thing that most readers or viewers of this play might discover is that there is no third act. Its message is as plain and stark as day, even if some of the secondary characters make interesting counterpoints, such as in not wanting so as to not to welcome either happiness or grief, or the last note in the music, where compromise and peace has got to be a better note to go out on than Timon's.

For when he dies, he dies hating all humanity, and there is no quarter, no justice, and only abject nihilism.

Of course people aren't going to like this play. :)

BUT.

If you're of a certain twisted temperament and like a twisted tale that defies expectations, such as an esoteric bad horror fan or a devotee of Samuel Beckett, then you might just discover that this little jewel might fit in your dark-hearted crown, or at least in a shit-stain'd seat of honor.

'Tis dark. Very dark. Expect no light or quarter. :) show less

Wow. Okay, that was just awful. Gives Edward III serious competition in the race to the bottom. It's like someone said to Shakespeare, “Bet you can't make a more unlikeable protagonist than Titus Andronicus,” and Shakespeare said, “Oh yeah? Here, hold my ale!”

Timon has the good fortune to be born to wealth and position in Athens, and manages to blow through absolutely all of his money by endlessly playing the “Lord Bountiful,” ignoring the protests of his more sensible steward, glorying in the flattery and sycophantic sucking up of toadies. Where he might be sympathetic as an “excessively compassionate” sort if he gave away all his money to people in real need, Timon's generosity seems to be directed mostly at show more comfortably well-off friends. He hauls out his jewel chest at parties, ostentatiously handing out gems as party favors, and, remembering that a friend admired the horse he was riding recently, announces “'Tis yours, because you lik'd it.” He's maybe a step away from lighting his cigars with $100 bills. Until the funds are all gone. And, shocker, his buddies no longer care about him. Who, in the noble Timon's estimation, is to blame for his downfall? Himself, perhaps, and his own reckless irresponsibility? His friends, who enjoyed his largesse but don't want to help him when he's in trouble? Nope. ALL MANKIND. That's who's to blame. All the women, maidens, toddlers, infants, slaves, old men, etc. of Athens.

”Spare not the babe, whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy; think it a bastard, whom the oracle hath doubtfully pronounc'd the throat shall cut, and mince it sans remorse. Swear against objects, put armor on thine ears and on thine eyes, whose proof nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes, nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding, shall pierce a jot.”

There are a few amusing exchanges, and Timon's steward is a lovely, devoted fellow who does his level best, but his master is an idiot and a jerk. This is a relatively short play, but it sure felt like it went on forever. show less

I could see that I had arrived at the autumn of the Bard's career when I reached his collaborations with hacks.

I would like to think that the parts of the play I didn't like were the work of the hack. I assume that he was responsible for the Alcibades scenes reading like some schoolboy was doing an adaptation of Coriolanus as an classroom assignment or the perfunctory setup of Timon's future woes or the dimwitted idea of having the hero die off-stage. By contrast, I credit the Bard with the stinging reproaches ("Uncover, dogs, and lap") and the magnificent rants (and the Bard can rant) and the unmasking of fraud and hypocrisy (take that, poet and painter). A bad play with great moments.

P.S. I just realized what it really lacked - no show more strong women characters!? show less

This is a weird one for me. I'm basically slowly plowing through the various plays and I'm the first to admit that I'm quite ignorant on the world of Shakespeare. I see others commenting on how this was a collaboration with Middleton and I think...who the hell's Middleton?

I think it should be noted that, as I (far too rapidly) approach my sixth decade on the planet, I decided to right a wrong from high school. That is, to come at Shakespeare's works with no expectations, just to enjoy them, to love the language, and let them wash over me as they will. Because in high school, Mr. Elsie (who looked remarkably like an undernourished G.I. Joe action figure...think G.I. Joe Inaction Figure) had us autopsy a couple of Shakespeare's plays, show more flaying virtually every scene and demanding that we wring out every ounce of subtext and meaning we could either glean or simply make up to appease the teacher enough to award a respectable, if ultimately disappointing grade. In short, he killed all enjoyment of Shakespeare's works for me, an avid reader even then.

So here I am, four decades later, coming at them and mostly enjoying them. Which is a long way back around to this particular play.

Supposedly this is a comedy, and while it held some smirkable lines, it didn't have me laughing out loud as some of his earlier works did. It's not quite a tragedy, yet Timon cuts a rather tragic figure.

And of all of Shakespeare's works, I'll admit to literally never having heard of this one until I started working on his entire output of work. And ultimately, while it's not my favourite by any means, I did enjoy Shakespeare's take on the "no good deed goes unpunished" theme. show less

A messy, uneven and disillusioned play, Timon of Athens is rarely studied or performed because of scepticism regarding both its authorship and completion. Like Pericles there seems little doubt that Shakespeare wrote the majority, but quite what he was trying to do is another matter. Timon of Athens is rich and generous, happy to provide his friends, servants and acquaintances with money whenever they require it. Only the cynical Apemantus questions the soundness of Timon's actions, and the motives of his supposed friends, wondering at "what a number of men eats Timon, and he sees 'em not. It grieves me to see so many dip their meat in one man's blood." When Timon's creditors ask for payment of their loans, Timon goes to his friends, show more but they all refuse to help him. Even worse, Timon's one loyal friend Alcibiades is exiled from Athens. After renouncing all his friends at one last banquet, Timon retires to a misanthropic life as a hermit in a cave. As he rails against "yellow, glittering precious gold", he completely renounces mankind, to die alone in his cave, his epitaph claiming that "Here lie I, Timon, who alive / All living men did hate". One of Shakespeare's more puzzling plays, Timon of Athens is unusually bleak and unforgiving, with Timon behaving like an unsympathetic version of Lear (they were both written within a couple of years of each other). --Jerry Brotton show less

No wonder that Thomas Middleton is thought to have had a hand in this play, it has his bleak, fatalist conception of mankind written all over it. In pace and structure as well as in its themes it anticipates post-modern 20th century theatre. A marvelous work that, alongside its convoluted creation, is clearly a one-off.