Timon: From Infinite Generosity to Infinite Hatred
First appears: Act 1, Scene 1
Timon spends his fortune entertaining, giving gifts, paying his friends' debts. He is extravagantly generous, possibly pathologically so. When his money runs out and he goes to his friends for help, every one refuses. He is not just disappointed. He is transformed.
His misanthropy (hatred of people) in the second half of the play is as absolute as his generosity was in the first. He finds gold while digging for roots outside Athens and gives it away to anyone who will use it destructively. He wants the world to fail.
Shakespeare and Middleton wrote the play together (it exists in an unusually rough state) but Timon's trajectory from love to hate is one of the most extreme transformations in Shakespeare.
Key Scenes
Famous Quotes
“I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.”
Timon — Act 4, Scene 3
“I am sick of this false world, and will love nought But even the mere necessities upon 't.”
Timon — Act 4, Scene 3
Themes
Other Characters in Timon of Athens
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