From The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, ed. Charles Wells Moulton, 8 vols. (Buffalo, NY: Moulton Publishing, 1901), 1: 529-31.
[This section was prepared and proofread by Deborah Hill.]
TIMON OF ATHENS
1607-8
I am now to present your Grace with this History of Timon, which you were pleased to tell me you liked, and it is the more worthy of you, since it has the inimitable hand of Shakespear in it, which never made more Masterly strokes than in this. -- SHADWELL, THOMAS, 1678, The
History of Timon of Athens, the Man-Hater, made into a play. Epistle Dedicatory.
The play of Timon is a domestic tragedy, and therefore strongly fastens on the attention of the reader. In the plan there is not much art, but the incidents are natural, and the characters various and exact. The catastrophe affords a very powerful warning against that ostentatious liberality, which scatters bounty, but confers no benefits, and buys flattery, but not friendship. In this tragedy, are many passages perplexed, obscure, and probably corrupt, which I have endeavoured to rectify, or explain, with due dilligence; but, having only one copy, cannot promise myself that my endeavours shall be much applauded. -- JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1768, General Observations on Shakspeare's Plays.
"Timon of Athens" always appeared to us to be written with as intense a feeling of his subject as any one play of Shakespear. It is one of the few in which he seems to be in earnest throughout, never to trifle nor go out of his way. He does not relax in his efforts, nor lose sight of the unity of his design. It is the only play of our author in which spleen is the predominant feeling of the mind. It is as much a satire as a play: and contains some of the finest pieces of invective possible to be conceived, both in the snarling, captious answers of the cynic Apemantus, and in the impassioned and more terrible imprecations of Timon. -- HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1817-69, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, p. 44.
"Timon of Athens" forms the beautiful close of Shakspeare's poetical career. It reflects more clearly than any other piece the poet's consciousness of the nothingness of human life and nature in themselves, and a Christian reliance on God, as the source of all that is abiding and permanent. We distinctly see him abandoning the trifling pursuits and contentions of this life, for calm heavenly meditation; but at the same time we see, that before he could arrive at this repose, his path had been crossed by many and heavy conflicts. Indeed, when we compare this tragedy with others which belong probably to his latest labours, the confession is forced from us that his view of the world and things, even in its artistic side, must have been somewhat troubled in the latter years of his career. -- ULRICI, HERMANN, 1839, Shakspeare's Dramatic Art, p, 243.
The principle which we seek to establish, namely, that the "Timon of Athens" was a play originally produced by an artist very inferior to Shakspere, and which probably retained possession of the stage for some time in its first form; that it has come down to us not only re-written, but so far re-modelled that entire scenes of Shakspere have been substituted for entire scenes of the elder play, and lastly, that this substitution has been almost wholly confined to the character of Timon, and that in the development of that character alone, with the exception of some few occasional touches here and there, we must look for the unity of the Shaksperean conception of the Greek Misanthropos -- the Timon of Aristophanes and Lucian and Plutarch -- "the enemy to mankind," of the popular story books -- of the " Pleasant Histories and excellent Novels," which were greedily devoured by the contemporaries of the boyish Shakspere. -- KNIGHT, CHARLES, 1819, Studies of Shakspere, bk. ii, ch. iv, p. 70.
It certainly is not like the sepia sketch of a great master, perfect so far as it goes; nor yet like an unfinished picture which shows the basis of the artist's work; nor yet like those paintings of the old masters, in which the accessories were filled in by the 'prentice hands of their pupils, while the design and prominent figures indicated the taste and skill of high genius. It is rather an old painting retouched perhaps in all its parts, and the prominent figures entirely remodeled by the hand of the great master, but designed and originally completed by a stranger. Of the type of Timon's character there can be no doubt. He is unmistakably of the family of Hamlet and Lear. The resemblance to Lear especially is close; like him at first, full of unreasoning confidence; like him at last, full of unreasoning hate. -- BUCKNILL, JOHN CHARLES, M. D., 1859-67, The Mad Folk of Shakespeare, p. 236.
"Timon of Athens" unquestionably contains much matter from another hand. The unShakespearian characters in the play are three Lords -- Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius; three Servants -- Flavius (Steward always in the Shakespeare part), Flaminius, and Servilius; three Strangers; three Creditors --Hortensius, Philotus, and 2d Varro; three Masquers; and the Soldier. -- FLEAY, FREDERICK GARD, 1886, Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare, pp. 242, 243.
The play is, however, one of the less celebrated and less attractive among Shakespeare's works. The theme itself is not the most enticing, and its treatment must be pronounced to be in many respects unsatisfactory. The inequality of the execution will be acknowledged by every careful reader. Some parts are wrought out with great skill and completeness; others are hastily and rudely sketched, while certain necessary links seem to be omitted altogether. The versification is often a mystery, and the prose frequently appears to be written with exceeding carelessness. But the main characterisitc of the play is the dark coloring in which it portrays social life. Its speech is steeped in bitterness, it contains the most vindictive utterances against mankind to be found in Shakespeare. A noble, generous character is victimized to the last degree, and driven forward to suicide. Unselfishness apparently becomes tragic in a selfish world. Still, the other side is not neglected, this very unselfishness is seen to be at bottom selfish. Timon is guilty, and has to take the consequence of his deed. He turns misanthrope, full of vehement sarcasm and red-hot imprecation. The latter part of the play, in particular, is a bath of gall. -- SNIDER, DENTON JAQUES, 1887, The Shakespearian Drama, The Tragedies, p. 13.
"Timon of Athens" has come down to us in a pitiable condition. The text is in a terrible state, and there are, not only between one scene and another, but between one page and another, such radical differences in the style and general spirit of the play as to preclude the possibility, of its having been the work of one man. The threads of the story are often entirely disconnected, and circumstances occur (or are referred to) for which we were in no way prepared. The best part of the versification is distinctly Shakespearian, and contains all that wealth of thought which was characteristic of this period of his life, but the other parts are careless, discordant, and desperately monotonous. The prose dialogue especially jars, thrust as it is, with its long-winded straining after effect, into scenes which are otherwise compact and vigorous. All Shakespeare students of the present day concur in the opinion that "Timon of Athens," like "Pericles," is but a great fragment from the master-hand. -- BRANDES, GEORGE, 1898, William Shakespeare, A Critical Study, vol. II. p. 254.
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