Timon of Athens -- (2 CD's Compact Discs & Booklet in Clamshell -- Arkangel Complete Shakespeare

Shakespeare, William / Performed By Alan Howard, Norman Rodway and Damian Lewis

ISBN 10: 0792729919 / ISBN 13: 9780792729914

Published by BBC Audiobooks America, U.S.A., 2003

About this Item

2 CD's Compact Discs & Booklet in Clamshell -- Ex-Library -- Very Good -- All components show only light wear.

Seller Inventory # 318897

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Timon of Athens -- (2 CD's Compact Discs & Booklet in Clamshell -- Arkangel Complete Shakespeare
• Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0792729919
• ISBN 13: 9780792729914
• Condition: Very Good
• Book Type: Ex-Library

About this title

Synopsis

This controversial play follows the declining fortunes of a man of extravagant contradictions.

The fabulously rich Timon believes all his friends to be as open-hearted and generous as himself. When his wealth suddenly evaporates, however, he discovers the truth and his altruism turns to a bitter hatred of mankind. Stirred up by the cynical Apemantus, Timon retreats to the woods where he plots the destruction of Athens, the city that had formerly seemed to embody everything pleasurable and civilized. The cosmic scope of his hatred is communicated in a series of powerful and disturbing dramatic tableaux.

Alan Howard is Timon and Norman Rodway is Apemantus. Damian Lewis play Alcibiades.

Review

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, 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