Timon of Athens

• Timon – a lord, and later a misanthrope, of Athens • Alcibiades – captain of a military brigade and good friend of Timon • Apemantus – sometimes spelled Apermantus, a philosopher and churl. His name means "feeling no pain" • Flavius – Timon's chief Steward • Flaminius – Timon's servant • Servilius – Timon's servant • Lucilius – a romantic youth and Timon's servant • Ventidius – also spelled "Ventidgius", one of Timon's "friends" initially in debtors' prison • Lucullus – Timon's "friend" • Lucius – Timon's "friend" • Sempronius – Timon's "friend" • Poet and Painter – two friends and artists who seek Timon's patronage • Jeweller • Merchant • Senators of Athens • Fool – briefly a companion to Apemantus • Three Strangers, one named Hostilius – friends of Lucius • The Old Athenian – the father of the woman Lucilius loves • Four Lords – false friends of Timon • Servants to Timon, Isidore, Lucullus, Lucius and Varro • Titus, Hortensius and Philotus – Timon's creditors (Isidore and Varro are also creditors, but only their servants appear) • Phrynia – a prostitute • Timandra – a prostitute • Banditti • Soldier • Page • Cupid – introduces the masque • Ladies at the Masque ==Synopsis==

Timon is a wealthy and generous Athenian gentleman. He hosts a large banquet, attended by nearly all of Athens. Timon gives away money wastefully, and everyone around him pleases him to receive more, except for Apemantus, a churlish philosopher ''(whose name means "feeling no pain" ==Date and text==

The play's date is uncertain, though its bitter tone links it with Coriolanus and King Lear. John Day'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. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register in 1623. There are no contemporary allusions to the play by which its date of composition may be determined, nor is there an agreed means of explaining the play's "loose ends and inconsistencies". Editors since the twentieth century have sought to remedy these defects through conjectures about Shakespeare's emotional development (Chambers); hypotheses concerning the play's "unfinished state" (Ellis-Fermor) and "scribal interference" (Oliver); and through statistical analyses of vocabulary, stage directions, and so forth. Assuming the play is a collaboration between Shakespeare and Middleton, its date has been placed in the period 1605–1608, most likely 1606. In his 2004 edition for the Oxford Shakespeare, John Jowett argues the lack of act divisions in the Folio text is an important factor in determining a date. The King's Men only began to use act divisions in their scripts when they occupied the indoor Blackfriars Theatre in August 1608 as their winter playhouse. Timon is notoriously difficult to divide into acts, suggesting to Jowett that it was written at a time when act divisions were of no concern to the writer, hence it must have been written prior to August 1608. A terminus post quem may come from a possible topical allusion to the Gunpowder Plot of November 1605; "those that under hot ardent zeal would set whole realms on fire" (scene 7, 32–33). In the context of the play, the line is referring to religious zeal, but some scholars feel it is a subtle reference to the events of November. The play may also have been influenced by a pamphlet published in June 1605, Two Unnatural and Bloody Murders, which served as the primary source for Thomas Middleton's A Yorkshire Tragedy. This would narrow the possible range of dates to sometime between November 1605 and August 1608. Furthermore, MacDonald P. Jackson's rare-word test found the conjectured Shakespearean parts of the text date to 1605–1606. Going further, Jackson found that if one examines the non-Shakespearean sections in the context of Middleton's career, a date of 1605–1606 also results. == Sources ==

'' by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, c. 1767 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 Middleton, was first suggested in 1920. One theory is that the play as it appears in the First Folio is unfinished. E. K. Chambers believes Shakespeare began the play, but abandoned it due to a mental breakdown, never returning to finish it. F. W. Brownlow believes the play to have been Shakespeare's last, and remained uncompleted at his death. The now-predominant theory of collaborative authorship was proposed by Charles Knight in 1838. Today, many scholars believe that other dramatist was Thomas Middleton. However, the exact nature of the collaboration is disputed. Did Middleton revise a piece begun by Shakespeare, did Shakespeare revise Middleton's work, or did they work together? John Jowett, editor of the play for both the Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Works and the individual Oxford Shakespeare edition, believes Middleton worked with Shakespeare in an understudy capacity and wrote scenes 2 (1.2 in editions which divide the play into acts), 5 (3.1), 6 (3.2), 7 (3.3), 8 (3.4), 9 (3.5), 10 (3.6) and the last eighty lines of 14 (4.3). A 1917 study by J. M. Robertson posited that George Chapman wrote "A Lover's Complaint" and was the originator of Timon of Athens. These claims were rejected by other commentators, including Bertolt Brecht, Frank Harris, and Rolf Soellner (1979), who thought 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, where it would have found a niche audience with young lawyers. 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 characteristic of his work but 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 (Sc. 2), the central scenes with Timon's creditors and Alcibiades' confrontation with the senate, and most of the episodes figuring 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." ==Analysis and criticism==

(c. 1790) (c. 1790) 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 Caesar and ''Love's Labour's Lost 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. 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'', 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. Admirers like Soellner point out that Shakespeare's text has Timon neither drink wine nor eat meat: only water and roots are specifically mentioned as being in his diet, which is also true of Apemantus. If one sees Timon's parties not as mere excuses to have fun, 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 below, 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/Brian Bedford production (in which Timon eats flamingo) set to a score that Duke Ellington composed for it in the 1960s), and conclude the first act with a debauchery. The Arkangel Shakespeare audio recording featuring Alan Howard (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. Themes and motifs of Timon and the gold: act IV, scene iii Major motifs in Timon include dogs, breath, gold (from act IV on), and "use" (in the sense of usury). 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." ==Performance history==

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 and Coriolanus, which most scholars believe were written in the same period. The earliest known performance of the straight Shakespearean text was at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin in 1761. The earliest-known production of a predominantly Shakespearean version of the play in the United Kingdom was at Sadler's Wells in 1851. James Earl Jones played the title character in a 1980 staging at the Yale Repertory Theater. The production also featured Yale School of Drama students Jane Kaczmarek, Reg E. Cathey, Kristine Nielsen, and David Alan Grier. When asked whether the role of Timon was tough, he responded "I can't think of it that way. It may be impossible, but it's not tough." This was a production of The Public Theater, which revived the play in February 2011 with Richard Thomas in the lead role, citing it as a play for the Great Recession. The Chicago Shakespeare Theater first staged the play in 1997. It was the company's first modern-dress production. In April 2012, C.S.T. again staged the play with the Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid playing Timon. The play was given a new ending by director Barbara Gaines. In August 2011, the Hudson Shakespeare Company of New Jersey staged Timon of Athens as part of their summer Shakespeare in the Parks series. As a departure from several other modern dress productions, director Jon Ciccarelli set the action in the "Roaring 20s" with corrupt politicians, mobsters and making the characters of Alcibiades, Timon of Athens and Flavius veterans of World War I. Timon (Imran Sheikh) was portrayed as a 'Great Gatsby' type figure who loses his great fortune to corrupt "friends". In July 2012 the British National Theatre produced a version of the play set in modern dress and in the present time of scandal and fraud in the City of London and the British media. The play was directed by Nicholas Hytner. The National Theatre production was broadcast live to cinemas worldwide on 1 November 2012 as part of the National Theatre Live programme. From 7 December 2018 to 22 February 2019 the play was revived by the Royal Shakespeare Company in a version directed by Simon Godwin, also in modern dress and featuring contemporary visual allusions, starring Kathryn Hunter as Lady Timon, one of several gender changes. Hunter and Godwin's version also had a run in New York City at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn. The show opened on 19 January 2020, and ran through 9 February 2020. The following month the production played at the Shakespeare Theater Company's Kline Theatre in Washington DC. In 2024 the Australian Sport for Jove Theatre Company produced a version called I Hate People; or Timon of Athens, directed by Margaret Thanos and starring the company's artistic director Damien Ryan, at the Everglades, Leura. The production was described by The Sydney Morning Herald as the "pinnacle of Shakespeare in Sydney this century". ==Adaptations==

TV adaptations Rarely performed, Timon of Athens was produced for TV as part of the BBC Television Shakespeare series in 1981 with Jonathan Pryce as Timon, Norman Rodway as Apemantus, John Welsh as Flavius, and John Shrapnel as Alcibiades, with Diana Dors as Timandra, Tony Jay as the Merchant, Sebastian Shaw as the Old Athenian, and John Fortune and John Bird as Poet and Painter. This Elizabethan/Jacobean historical period drama production was directed by Jonathan Miller. Film adaptations I, Timon was released in 2016 premiered at the 2017 Hoboken International Film Festival (where it was nominated for "Best Director" and "Best Cinematography"). Bramwell Noah appears in the title role (and is also responsible for the original adaptation of the play for the big screen). The film also features a soundtrack based on the musical score Hexachordum Apollinis by Johann Pachelbel. Play adaptations In 1678 Thomas Shadwell produced a popular adaptation, The History of Timon of Athens, the Man-Hater, to which Henry Purcell 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's version at Drury Lane 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) and 1816 (George Lamb's at Drury Lane), ending with an 1851 production reinstating Shakespeare's original text by Samuel Phelps at Sadler's Wells. Peter Brook 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 Algerian. 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. British playwright Glyn Cannon 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 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"). Musical versions Shadwell's adaptation of the play was first performed with music by Louis Grabu in 1678. More famously, the 1695 revival had new music by Henry Purcell, most of it appearing in the masque that ended act 2. Duke Ellington 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 for the BBC television version, composed a two-act opera, Timon of Athens, which was first performed at the London Coliseum on 17 May 1991. ==Cultural references==

Ralph Waldo Emerson 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." Karl Marx discusses and quotes Timon in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 and Das Kapital, Volume I. Marx's analysis focuses on how passages from Timon of Athens (act IV, scene III) shed light on the nature and amoral power of money: • "It is the visible divinity – the transformation of all human and natural properties into their contraries, the universal confounding and distorting of things: impossibilities are soldered together by it." • "It is the common whore, the common procurer of people and nations." Charlotte Brontë includes an allusion to Timon in Villette (1853). Ginevra Fanshawe affectionately nicknames Lucy "Timon," which highlights Ginevra's role as a foil for Lucy. Herman Melville references Timon repeatedly in his novel The Confidence-Man (1857), when referring to confidence as a preferable trait in all circumstances to misanthropy. Charles Dickens alludes to Timon in Great Expectations (1861) when Wopsle moves to London to pursue a life in the theatre. Thomas Hardy alludes to Timon in his short story, "The Three Strangers" (1883). The English artist and writer Wyndham Lewis 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. Danish author Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) has a story within the tale titled "The Deluge of Norderney" in her Seven Gothic Tales (1934). It tells about a Hamlet-like figure, called Timon of Assens , who comes from the Danish town of Assens. Vladimir Nabokov borrowed the title for his novel Pale Fire (1962) from this quotation 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 and, at one point, the quotation above is amusingly mistranslated from the fictional language of Zemblan, a trademark prank of the polyglot Nabokov. The theme of thievery to which Timon is alluding is also a principal theme of Pale Fire, referring to Charles Kinbote's misappropriation of the poem by the deceased John Shade that forms part of the novel's structure. A hermit meerkat in Walt Disney's popular animated feature film The Lion King is named Timon. ==Notes==