SOURCE: Erlich, Avi. “Neither to Give nor to Receive: Narcissism in Timon of Athens.” In CUNY English Forum, Vol. 1, edited by Saul N. Brody and Harold Schechter, pp. 215-30. New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1985.

In the following essay, Erlich asserts that in Timon of Athens Shakespeare used allegory and its “dream language” to explore Timon’s narcissism.

One can try to explain away the radical split in Timon's character by pointing to the substantial evidence that Timon of Athens was left in draft,¹ but it is clear from what we have, which is largely complete in conception and design, that in a polished version of the play Timon would have precisely the same polarized character as he has now. Since Shakespeare intended the Timon we have and since there is no attempt on the surface of the play to provide motivation for Timon's self-destructive generosity, his self-burying scurrility...