Magnificence and Friendship, 8-26-2010

The former wife brought me my Quality Paperback Club collection of Shakespeare. I am working my way through the unread plays.

Reading Timon of Athens brought my mind back to Aristotle and his Nicomachean Ethics. 

[Does heresy follow? sch 3/14/23] I find Shakespeare's Timon far less interesting than Moliere's The Misanthrope. those faulting my taste need consider this from Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV, Chapter 1:

Prodigality and Meanness² on the other hand are both of them modes of excess and of deficiency in relation to wealth. 1. [3] Meanness is always applied to those who care more than is proper about wealth, but Prodigality is sometimes used with a wider connotation, 1. [4] since we call the unrestrained and those who squander money on debauchery prodigal; and therefore prodigality is thought to be extremely wicked, because it is a combination of vices. 1. [5] But this is not the proper application of the word: really it denotes the possessor of one particular vice, that of wasting one's substance; for he who is ruined by his own agency is a hopeless case indeed,³ and to waste one's substance seems to be in a way to ruin oneself, inasmuch as wealth is the means of life. This then is the sense in which the term Prodigality is here understood.1. [6]

I see Timon as so generous he wastes his money. I can find little sympathy for his anger at wasting his money. I did the same thing and do not see me anything but indigent for what remains of my life.

Timon provokes my sympathy over the issue of friendship. I think Shakespeare can easily illustrate many parts of Book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics. I see here points made in Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon, and Sirach regarding friendship.

My edition has notes on the history of Timon's performance. I note there was a BBC television production in 1981 (almost 30 years old!) which could be used in teaching Aristotle's ethics.

(Perhaps electronic books will be truly electronic by providing html links to illustrative material whether of text, audio, or video. Now, that might make 2022 an interesting place.)

(One other aside, Timon and a notion about its staging. During my reading of the play, my memory kept dragging up The Ballad of Cable Hogue. I can see no specific connection other than misanthropy. However, I could see Timon updated to the old west. Think about it.)

sch