SOURCE: Bulman, James C., Jr. “Shakespeare's Use of the Timon Comedy.” Shakespeare Survey 29 (1976): 103-16.

In the following essay, Bulman presents evidence that Shakespeare's chief source for Timon of Athens was an English academic comedy known as Timon.

Timon of Athens, fraught with inconsistencies and long regarded as unfinished, has been of particular interest to scholars who believe that finding the right source will resolve all its inherent problems. These scholars inevitably have cited either Plutarch's Life of Antony or Lucian's dialogue Misanthropos as the principle source through which the play ought to be approached; and their interpretations have alternated between the extremes of romantic tragedy and bitter satire.¹ In a recent article I suggested that the MS Timon comedy, long discounted as a source because of its academic quality and because there was no significant evidence that it was ever performed, probably was performed c. 1602 at the Inns...