SOURCE: O'Dair, Sharon. “Aping Aristocrats: Timon of Athens and the Anticipation of Intellectuals.” In Class, Critics, and Shakespeare: Bottom Lines on the Culture Wars, pp. 43-66. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000.

In the following essay, O'Dair discusses Shakespeare's views on economics and social status as presented in Timon of Athens.

In explaining to Roderigo why he continues to serve Othello when he no longer feels “in any just term … affin'd / To love the Moor,” Iago distinguishes between two kinds of servants and two kinds of service:

                                                                                                    You shall mark Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave, That, doting on his own obsequious bondage, Wears out his time much like his master's ass, For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashier'd, Whip me such honest knaves: others there are, Who, trimm'd in forms, and visages of duty, Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves, And throwing but...