ABSTRACT
Timon of Athens is about friendship. Before he is betrayed, Timon displays all the generosity of friendship, but none of its intimacy. Paul Millet argues that "Homeric 'friendship' appears as a system of calculated cooperation not necessarily accompanied by any feelings of affection. "Christopher Gill's summary of this approach is that modern idea of friendship is based upon the idea that: Behind the social self, the bearer of roles and participant in communal action, there is another, deeper and more private self. William Empson identifies just a possibility of friendship among unequals in Timon when he comments on the competing meanings of the word "dog" in the play. Apemantus mainly uses the word to describe a "flatterer," as when he calls the courtiers dogs. Timon shows the limit of friendship understood only as reciprocity.
