The Shakespeare Post

Cover of Timon of Athens, Arden Shakespeare Third Series

July 29, 2008

It’s just a coincidence that the new Arden edition of “Timon of Athens” is being released at the same time that the Globe Theatre in London is premiering a major new production of the play. But both make the case that Timon, one of Shakespeare’s least read and least performed plays, still has something to offer to 21^st century audiences.

“Timon of Athens” has been the focus of considerable scholarly attention in recent years. John Jowett, Deputy Director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham, has produced two editions of Timon. One was published last year in “The Collected Works of Thomas Middleton” published by Oxford University Press. The other was published in 2004 as part of the Oxford World’s Classics series.

The latest Arden edition of “Timon of Athens,” was edited by Anthony B. Dawson, Professor of English Emeritus at the University of British Columbia, and Gretchen E. Minton, Assistant Professor of English at Montana State University in Bozeman. In the opening pages of the volume, they warn readers, “Timon of Athens is a peculiar and to some an unpalatable play.”

As far as we can tell, Timon is an unfinished play. The verse is uneven, several scenes aren’t integrated into the plot, the subplot essentially disappears, and characters sometimes contradict themselves within the space of a few lines. It’s also generally acknowledged that Shakespeare didn’t write Timon by himself but collaborated with Thomas Middleton.

For all its faults, however, Timon has also been called Shakespeare’s most profound tragic allegory. It contains some of his most colorful writing and biting invective. And despite a spotty theatrical history, several contemporary directors have proved the play can be successfully performed on stage.

In order to help make sense of Timon, Dawson and Minton addressed the critical questions of authorship. Are we certain that Shakespeare collaborated with Middleton? Why would Shakespeare work with a young playwright at a time when he was at the height of his powers? How closely did the two men work together and what parts of the play can we attribute to each of the authors?

Dawson and Minton agree with most contemporary editors that Timonis the work of both Shakespeare and Middleton. They explain in the introduction: “Recent studies, refining older techniques and adding evidence gathered from statistical mapping of such writerly habits as the use of certain contractions or grammatical forms, have homed in on Middleton as the co-author. The result has been an accumulation of convergent evidence that is, in our view, convincing.”

Statistical mapping can satisfactorily answer who wrote Timon, but it can’t fully address how or why the collaborators worked together. The editors admit that we can never know the answers but argue there’s still something to be learned by asking the questions.

Why would Shakespeare work with a less experienced playwright at a time when he was writing some of his greatest plays including “King Lear” and “Macbeth?” Dawson and Minton discuss several possible answers including the intriguing prospect that Shakespeare understood Middleton was better at some genres of playwriting. Noting that, “Timon combines tragedy and urban satire in a way that is unique in the Shakespearean canon,” the editors suggest Shakespeare may have actually sought Middleton as a collaborator due the younger playwright’s demonstrated talent for, “sardonic tone and a vivid attention to the grittiness of city life.”

Addressing the question of how the playwrights worked together, Dawson and Minton find evidence of a close collaboration. Just as the two co-editors sometimes mixed their styles while working on this edition of Timon, they believe many scenes show the hands of both playwrights. “It is certainly not impossible, Dawson and Minton write, “that they, like the two of us working on this edition, sat down together on occasion and worked through scenes that needed tinkering.” That doesn’t mean the playwrights worked as equal partners. Though some scenes are too ambiguous to assign to one author or the other, Dawson and Minton say the evidence shows Shakespeare took the lead on the play, laying out the overall plan and keeping the best scenes for himself.

Whatever the strengths of the collaboration, the result was an untidy play full of inconsistencies and anomalies. Timonwas never published in quarto, making the First Folio of the most reliable source available to editors. Dawson and Minton determine that the text printed in the Folio is defective and likely represents an unfinished draft. This conclusion led the editors to cut some text from the final scenes of the play in order to preserve what they believe was Shakespeare’s intended tone. They acknowledge the decision may be controversial but say failing to make the cuts would ‘diminish the ‘overall dramatic experience’ of the play.

Despite the unsatisfactory condition of the text in First Folio, the unfinished play presents us with a final mystery. In an email interview, Professor Dawson states that the incomplete version we have today, “Does not mean that it was never finished–it’s possible, for example, that a revised version was at some point performed, but that the manuscript that Heminge and Condell were able to supply at the last moment in 1623 was an earlier incomplete draft.”

One thing is certain. Despite an increased interest in Timon by scholars and theatre directors, its unlikely this peculiar and sometimes unpalatable play will yield its remaining mysteries anytime soon.