Timon of Athens

By William Shakespeare

Read & Co. Classics presents this new beautiful edition of William Shakespeare's play, "Timon of Athens", featuring a specially commissioned new biography of William Shakespeare. Timon, an Athenian known for his vast generosity, depletes his entire fortune in the name of friendship. Facing the consequences of his own naivety, Timon finds himself at a loss when his wealth and friendship is unreturned by those he once lavished. Consumed by bitterness he retreats into solitude. The play explores the fickleness involved with friendships and the instability of wealth and its consequences. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is considered to be the greatest writer in the English language and is celebrated as the world's most famous dramatist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Aug 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781528785792

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

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TIMON OF ATHENS

By

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE LIFE OF

TIMON OF ATHENS

A Tragedy

By

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

First published in 1623

This edition is published by Classic Books Library

an imprint of Read Books Ltd.

Copyright © 2018 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

Contents

William Shakespeare

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

ACT I.

SCENE I. Athens. A Hall in Timon's House

SCENE II. The Same. A Room of State in Timon's House.

ACT II.

SCENE I. Athens. A Room in a Senator's House.

SCENE II. The Same. A Hall in Timon's House.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Athens. A Room in Lucullus' House.

SCENE II. A Public Place.

SCENE III. The Same. A Room in Sempronius' House.

SCENE IV. A Hall in Timon's House.

SCENE V. The Same. The Senate House. The Senate Sitting.

SCENE VI. A Room of State in Timon's House.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. Without the Walls of Athens

SCENE II. Athens. A Room in Timon's House.

SCENE III. Woods and Caves near the Sea-shore.

ACT V.

SCENE I. The Woods. Before Timon's Cave.

SCENE II. Before the Walls of Athens.

SCENE III. The Woods. Timon's Cave, and a Rude Tomb Seen.

SCENE IV. Before the Walls of Athens

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED THE AUTHOR, MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

By BEN JONSON

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare, as any reader of this book will presumably know, was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language - and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Referred to as England's national poet, and the 'Bard of Avon', his extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, (some with unconfirmed authorship). Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about matters as wide ranging as his physical appearance, sexuality and religious beliefs.

William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26th April 1564. His actual date of birth remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23rd April, Saint George's Day. Although no attendance records for the period survive, biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar. Basic Latin education had been standardised by royal decree, and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar based upon Latin classical authors.

At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare married the twenty-six year old Anne Hathaway (who was pregnant at the time), with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins, Hamnet and Judith. After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the 'complaints bill' of a law case before the Queen's Bench court at Westminster, dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9th October 1589. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. By 1598, his name had become enough of a selling point to appear on the title pages.

Shakespeare continued to act in his own and in other plays after his success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). During this time, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford, and in 1596 bought ‘New Place’ as his family home in Stratford, whilst retaining a property in Bishopsgate, North of the river Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By 1604, Shakespeare had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at the age of forty-nine, where he died three years later.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest comedies. A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of his earliest comedies, is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. The wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the charming rural setting of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete the sequence of great comedies.

Shakespeare then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608. Many critics believe that his greatest tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, Hamlet, has probably been discussed more than any other character, especially for his famous soliloquy beginning; ‘To be or not to be; that is the question.’ Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of the tragedies that followed, Othello and King Lear, are undone by hasty errors of judgement. In Othello, the villain Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him. In King Lear, the old

Reviews for Timon of Athens

[thornton37814 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wealthy Athenian Timon spreads his wealth generously and hold parties. After giving all his wealth away, he discovers his so-called friends only cared about his wealth. He spends his remaining days in a cave. Shakespeare borrowed from other sources to create this work, and critics attribute portions to other authors. It's not among Shakespeare's best efforts.

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I could see that I had arrived at the autumn of the Bard's career when I reached his collaborations with hacks.I would like to think that the parts of the play I didn't like were the work of the hack. I assume that he was responsible for the Alcibades scenes reading like some schoolboy was doing an adaptation of Coriolanus as an classroom assignment or the perfunctory setup of Timon's future woes or the dimwitted idea of having the hero die off-stage. By contrast, I credit the Bard with the stinging reproaches ("Uncover, dogs, and lap") and the magnificent rants (and the Bard can rant) and the unmasking of fraud and hypocrisy (take that, poet and painter). A bad play with great moments.P.S. I just realized what it really lacked - no strong women characters!?

[amerynth · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Certainly not one of William Shakespeare's best works... I can understand why "Timon of Athens" is rarely staged. It is thought to be a collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton -- which may be why the play feels really uneven -- as if different parts were written by different people and patched together later.The plot is fairly simplistic -- Timon, an Athenian lord is so anxious to spread his wealth around to his friends that he eventually runs out of money and has to sell all of his lands. He becomes bitter after hearing the variety of excuses his friends provide for not helping him out in his financial need. There is a subplot involving a march into Athens by a soldier, but it wasn't particularly well developed (or else I had difficulty following it, I'm not sure which was the case.)The action in the play is very slow and the plot is a bit too simplistic to keep things interesting. I'd recommend this one only to Shakespeare completists.

[michaelm42071 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Stylistically and thematically Timon is like Lear only less so. In the first act Timon generously gives away money to everyone around him, but at the end of the act his steward Flavius lets us know that he’s not as rich as he seems. In the second act his bankruptcy goes public, and people begin to turn down his requests for money. He invites all his “friends” to a banquet of warm water in the third act. He goes into the wilderness, shedding clothes and raging at ingratitude like Lear, and his faithful steward follows, again like Lear. There are static encounters between Timon and various people—Athenian senators, bandits, and so on. Timon and Apemantus the misanthropic philosopher argue over which of them hates the world more and why. After Timon dies, his friend Alcibiades enters Athens (which he’d been besieging since the senators refused to pardon one of his soldiers) as the new leader.