ABSTRACT
J. C. Bucknill’s book The Mad Folk of Shakespeare, published in 1867, and has some very interesting observations on Timon’s character. Bucknill believes that an inferior artist originally wrote Timon of Athens and that William Shakespeare remodeled it, changing Timon’s character. A psychoanalyst approaching this play will see Timon as a case of pathological generosity. A psychoanalyst will attempt to establish a connection between the two characters traits of Timon: his excessive generosity, particularly towards strangers, and the vehemence of his demand for gratitude from them. Timon thus symbolically represents a double regression to the womb and to anal sexuality. From a psychoanalytic perspective Timon has undergone a regression to the anal phase. Timon throws away the gold he finds in his cave. Gold, in psychoanalytic thinking, is equated with faeces, and these are not accumulated but hurled at unwelcome visitors.
