Although the dual authorship of Timon of Athens has been long admitted, comparatively little has been done to identify the second author. The inferior parts of the play have been variously ascribed—with meagre evidence, in every case—to Thomas Heywood (d. 1650?), George Wilkins (fl. 1607), John Day (fl. 1606), and Cyril Tourneur (1575?-1626). Verplanck surmises that when the play was wanted by Heming and Condell 'some literary artist like Heywood was invited to fill up the accessory and subordinate parts of the play upon the author's own outline, and this was done, or attempted to be done, in the manner of the great original, as far as possible, but with distinction of his varieties of style.'[1] Delius believed that both Pericles and Timon showed the
- ↑ The Illustrated Shakespeare, edited by G. C. Verplanck, (New York, 1847), Introduction to Timon of Athens.
have been usually considered, Shakespeare's share of the play has been inadequately motivated. If, on the other hand, these two scenes are from his pen, Shakespeare himself has motivated Timon's misanthropy, and his priority in composition is rendered more likely. (A second apparent gap in the play has been the lack of motivation for the assistance given Timon by Alcibiades. Wright shows how the interpolator tried to close this gap, and suggests how Shakespeare himself may have planned to fill it.) As an additional argument for Shakespeare's priority Wright also notes that every point at which the play follows a source 'falls within a scene that Shakespeare wrote—that every episode or line for which a source is known comes from his pen.' In concluding his argument for Shakespeare's priority Wright says: "Ten spurious scenes and passages scattered through Shakspere's play and filling one third of it; and Shakspere never using them, never counting on them, never, except to suggest one (III. vi. 60: "Alcibiades is banished.") making a mention of them,—unaware of them. Lift them bodily from the play, and not a word will tell that they were ever in it. The fact is final. Those scenes and passages were no nucleus around which Shakspere built his play. They were extensions to the play he had already built.'
