Timon of Athens (Vol. 67) - Jeremy Tambling (essay date 2000)
Jeremy Tambling (essay date 2000)
SOURCE: Tambling, Jeremy. “Hating Man in Timon of Athens.” Essays in Criticism 50, no. 2 (April 2000): 145-68.
[In the following essay, Tambling investigates Timon's anger and melancholy, finding that these feelings generate both his philanthropy and misanthropy.]
Timon of Athens begins with two artists, a Poet and a Painter, who seem to stand aloof from the crowds of people visiting Timon for their own ends; however, they are just as financially interested, for they want to sell Timon their art-works. While the scene shows implicitly how art exists in a commodified form, their dialogue hints that the play will be self-reflexive, turning on the possibilities offered by its own art and language. The Poet asks the question, ‘how goes the world?’:
PAINTER:
It wears, sir, as it grows.
POET:
Ay, that's well known.
But what particular...
[The entire page is 9109 words long]
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