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Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1He had written twenty-six Dialogues of the Gods, in which he poked satirical fun at conventional religion, but so pleasantly that even the pious must have found it difficult to take offense. His best essay is considered to be "Timon," in which he uses the theme of a man who has become misanthropic through the ingratitude of others to poke fun at Jupiter and at Wealth. He expands on the hint in Plutarch and makes Timon out to have been, originally, a fantastically generous man who beggared himself for his friends and then found none who would help him. Shakespeare adopted this notion, but removed all the fun and humor in Lucian's dialogue and replaced it with savagery. … a dog Timon himself now enters, and moves among all those present with affability and generosity, giving to all who ask, denying no one. He accepts their rather sickening sycophancy with good humor, but accepts it. There is only one sour note and that is when the philosopher Apemantus enters. He is churlish and his every speech is a curt insult The Painter strikes back with: Y'are a dog. —Act I, scene i, line 202 This is not a mere insult, but, in a way, a statement of fact, if a slightly anachronistic one. About 400 b.c. a philosopher named Antisthenes taught that virtue was more important than riches or comfort and that, indeed, poverty was welcome, for wealth and luxury were corrupting ...» |
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