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| Timon of Athens |
| William Shakespeare |
| Arden, 1969 |
Review by Christopher North  |
| I bought this rather on the same auto-didact impulse that caused me to plough through the ‘Beginner’s Guide to Wittgenstein etc’ ICON series. The Arden editions are however a different kettle of fish. I now realise that the ‘Hamlet’ I had in the early years of Pinner County Eng.Lit. was an Arden edition – I remember one of its introductory headers: ‘Hamlet’s Procrastination’ which I piped up in an English lesson to impress Miss Howard – who generously praised my observation (Actually I had no idea what ‘procrastination’ meant.) So here – one of the Bard’s plays that I scarcely knew – although the title existed with the curious aura of being known because in a way it has always been known. Where first noted and placed in the schedule I cannot remember. If asked to name the Shakespeare plays – this is one that is easy to forget although I think I usually got it but without knowing a single detail of what it was about. And it is good. The text can be easily followed particularly with the enlightening Arden footnotes. Although there are scenes that last in the memory, I think this was a play that Shakespeare didn’t believe in; not in the form we see. A play that I can imagine he told himself he would go back to. Then he wrote ‘King Lear’ and there was no further reason to pick up this pale precursor. So it stays in a draft form with muddles over the dramatis personae and many passages where the usual polish and honing hasn’t been applied. Assuming that this was indeed a draft, scholars could learn a good deal about the technique Shakespeare used to move a first draft to final text. The process would of course have included rehearsal and performance. As the edition advises – Timon was never performed in Shakespeare’s lifetime and very rarely nowadays. As the lines are unpolished and inconsistent, the text is apparently very difficult to learn. The play lacks roundness. There are language themes used but given my vague knowledge of the total oeuvre I’d say nearly all the characters here are really prototypes for major characters in the more substantial plays: Timon – Lear, Apemantus – Fool in Lear, Alcibiades – Fortinbras, Steward – Kent etc etc. There is no sub-plot – always a key element it seems to me – and there are no significant female parts (just a proto-proto type Goneril and Regan) and this curiously deadens the action. The absence of love interest and absence of comedy would strongly dissuade most companies from producing this play. Although I’d bought this excellent edition simply because I had no idea of the play – I was prompted to actually read it by a quote from Ted Hughes who described someone as being ‘like Timon in the woods’ and, of course, you could say that Timon’s self-imposed exile to a cave in the wild wood is precisely paralleled by Lear’s delirious howling on the blasted heath but as Hughes is specific about Timon, one should look for the difference. Timon simply rants against the human race in general and expires off-stage whereas Lear raves against those who have reduced him and endures a final end with far more dramatic logic and horror. This is a distinction which one could use figuratively – except most people would think you were simply being obscure. There are some great passages and devices in the play – I was most caught by the dummy banquet and the Apemantus/Timon dialogues. Much seed material for Wayne Hill’s ‘Shakespeare’s Insults’ book incidentally. Timon - Let me look back on thee. O thou wall That girdles in those wolves, dive in the earth And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent! Obedience fail in children! Slaves and fools Pluck the grave wrinkled creature senate from the bench, And minister in their steads! To general filths Convert, o’th’ instant, green virginity! Do’t in your parent’s eyes! Bankrupts hold fast; Rather than render back, out with your knives, And cut your truster’s throats! Bound servants steal! Large-handed robbers your grave masters are, And pill by law. Maid, to thy master’s bed; Thy mistress is o’ the brothel! Son of sixteen, Pluck the lin’d crutch from thy old limping sire; With it beat out his brains!…… Wall! |
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