TIMON OF ATHENS

tragedy in five acts by William Shakespeare, probably first performed 160708 and published in the First Folio of 1623, from foul papers, probably unfinished. It belongs to Shakespeare's late experimental period, when he explored a new kind of tragic form. Unlike the plots of his great tragedies, the story of Timon of Athens is simple and lacks development. It demonstrates events in the life of Timon, a man known for his great and universal generosity, who spends his fortune and then is spurned when he requires help. He puts on a feast, invites his fair-weather friends, serves them warm water, and throws it in their faces. With his servant Flavius, he leaves Athens and, filled with hatred, goes to live in a cave. While digging for roots to eat, Timon uncovers gold, most of which he gives to the soldier Alcibiades for his war against Athens. Word of his fortune reaches Athens, and as a variety of Athenians importune Timon again, he curses them and dies. The play opens with the introductions of several types of Athenians, known only by their occupations, except for Apemantus, a philosopher who advises Timon, and Alcibiades, who debates the issues of revenge versus conciliation. The first half of the play shows Timon's thoroughly unrealistic assessment of the people and events around him and makes it clear that he is out of touch. As the audience watches, with considerable sympathy, reality intrudes. The second half of the play is a simple series of interviews between Timon and his Athenian visitors that seem arranged solely to allow Timon to vent his rage. Of the various explanations put forward for the uneven quality of the writing in this play, the most probable is that this is Shakespeare's rough draft of a play. It has many elements of composition in common with the great plays of the few years to which its composition belongs: iterative words and imagery, ironic preparation and anticipation, chorus statements by disinterested observers, plot and subplot parallel, both complementary and contrasted. If it is a rough draft, then it presents a unique opportunity of getting close to Shakespeare's method of writing. It would prove that he put structure before composition; that he went straight ahead drafting the structure of a play, unifying it by means of theme, imagery, and ironic preparation, and paying less attention to prose-verse form and to the characterization of minor personages. It would indicate that he wrote speeches quickly, not wasting much time at first about verse form, putting down the gist of what the character had to say, sometimes with imagery that came to him on the spur of the moment, incorporating lines or half lines of blank verse and even occasionally rhymed coupletsall to be worked up later. Nor, by judging the play unfinished, are its worth and importance diminished: certain parts may be roughly written, but the imaginative conception has a wholeness that the imperfect composition does not obscure.