Timon of Athens (Vol. 52) | Minerva Neiditz (essay date 1979)
Minerva Neiditz (essay date 1979)
SOURCE: “Primary Process Mentation and the Structure of Timon of Athens,” in University of Hartford Studies in Literature, Vol. 11, No. 1, 1979, pp. 24-35.
[In the essay below, Neiditz suggests reinterpreting Timon of Athens, noting the dream-like state of the play and its symbolism.]
Interpretations of Timon of Athens have led us astray by forcing the play into a logical, sequential mold with conclusions that Shakespeare was exhausted, suffering from a nervous breakdown or portraying a “syphlitic” character.1 Only Miss Ellis-Fermor, speaking of the Alcibiades-Senate scene, grasped the fact that it tumbles “suddenly into the action with the bewildering inconsequence of a dream.”2
If we approach the play like a dream, we recognize Shakespeare's suggestion of the simultaneity of time, the fulfillment of erotic and aggressive wishes through...
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