All The World's A

Stage
William Shakespeare
Tanaya ketkar
Fybcom batch 2
Roll no:265
About the author:
• William Shakespeare was a poet and dramatist
who lived and worked during the reign of queen
Elizabeth I of England. He is almost universally
acknowledged as one of the greatest dramatists of
all the time. Little is known about his personal life
except that he studied at grammar school at Stanford
upon Avon ,married Anne Hathaway and worked as
an actor in London. Shakespeare begins writing for
the stage in late 1580s. His plays were first
conducted in 1623 when a folio edition was published
including all his plays. Further folio additions
appeared in 1632,1663,1664 and 1685.
Shakespeare's earliest work as a dramatist were 3
parts of henry the 6th and this dates from 1590 to
1591. After this he wrote numerous plays and poems
among the better-known ones being comedies such
as a midsummer night's dream, as you like it,
merchant of the Venice ,twelfth night and tragedies
such as hamlet ,Othello ,Macbeth and king Lear. His
14-line poems were connected in the solids bracket
printed in 1609 and his long poems were ‘Venus and
Adonis’ and ‘the rape of lucrece’

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

About the poem:
The passage is taken from Shakespeare's famous comedy, as you like it
(Act 2, scene vii), and is uttered by the character jaques-a sort of Cynical
philosopher who likes to comment on the more negative aspects of life
and the world. Here he chooses to record the progress offer human life
in terms of 7 stages or phases. There is a gradual metamorphosis from
one stage to the other, from childhood 2 senility, when the human being
finally passes into death and oblivion. The view off life presented here is
colored by the cynical vision of jaques and need not necessarily
represent Shakespeare's . However, there is a truth to reality in the
whole portrayal. The metaphor of life as a play and humans as actors in it
is a successful tool to hang his philosophy on, and it reduces all human
life to a universal pattern
Summary of the poem(lines 1-6):
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances, And
one man in his time plays many parts, His acts
being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling
and puking in the nurse's arms.

Shakespeare says that each human being

performs seven parts in this small drama on
the stage of the world. He makes his entry
as a baby who is fully dependent upon
others. This stage ends when the infant
grows into a school child.
Summary of poem (line 7-15)
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And
shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing
like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his
mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange
oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor,
sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble
reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then
the justice,

The second stage is his boy-hood. This is his school going

period. It is the time when he complains all the time. His face
shines like the bright and fresh morning. He carries his school
bag and unwillingly goes to school at the speed of an insect.
This is the third stage of man’s life. Now he is a grown up
person and assumes the form of a lover. It is the time when he
loves his beloved ardently. He writes a song in praise of his
beloved’s eye brow. He also sings such songs again and burns
in his emotions. In these lines the poet shows the fourth stage
of a man’s life. When he matures, he becomes a soldier. He
takes strange oaths. He has a beard like a tiger or a leopard.
Summary of poem (lines 16-28):
This is the fifth stage of man’s life. Here man
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
becomes middle aged and mature like a judge
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
and has a fair.
Full of wise saws and modern instances; And
In the sixth line of the poem, the man enters
so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into
the elderly act of life, as an old man requiring
the lean and slippered pantaloon, With
spectacles to aid his vision made weak with
spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His
age, with the schoolboy satchel now replaced
youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
with a small pouch that is enough to carry all
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly
his humble old daily necessities.
voice, Turning again toward childish treble,
This is the last stage of man’s life. Man
pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of
becomes child once again. This is like his
all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is
second childhood. In this stage he is childish as
second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans
well as childlike. At this stage he forgets
teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
almost everything. His memory becomes very
weak. He loses teeth, eye-sight and taste. He is
without everything. This is the stage in which
he completes the drama of his life and leaves
the stage of this world for the next. und belly
full of the meat of chickens
Stages of life according to jaques

Stage 1:baby stage 4:soldier

Stage2:school Stage 5:midlle

going boy aged man

Stage3:teenager Stage 7:death stage 6:old man

in love
Various Figures of speech used in poem
Shakespeare makes use of several literary devices in this speech. Some are:

1. Simile: ‘creeping like a snail”; “soldier… bearded like the pard”; etc.

2. Metaphor: The entire speech itself is more like symbolism; men and women are portrayed as players whereas
life is portrayed as the stage. Shakespeare uses the “stage” as an extended metaphor.

3. Repetition: Another figure of speech used in this monologue; words like sans, age, etc. are repeated for the
sake of emphasis.

4. Anaphora: It is used in the eighth and ninth lines, beginning with the word “And”.

5. Synecdoche: “Made to his mistress’ eyebrow”; “And then the justice”; etc.

6. Alliteration: “his shrunk shank”; “quick in quarrel”; etc.

7. Onomatopoeia: “pipes / And whistles in his sound”

8. Asyndeton: “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

 Themes ,tone and mood of the poem
Theme:
‘All the world’s a stage’ Shakespeare discusses the futility
of humanity’s place in the world. He explores themes
of time, aging, memory, and the purpose of life. Through
the monologue’s central conceit, that everyone is simply a
player in a larger game that they have no control over, he
brings the themes together. Shakespeare takes the reader
through the stages of life, starting with infancy and
childhood and ending up with an old man who’s been a
lover, a soldier, and a judge. The “man” dies after reverting
back to a state that’s close to childhood and infancy. You
can also explore the themes in other William Shakespeare
poems.

Tone and mood:

In ‘All the world’s a stage’ Shakespeare creates
a somber and depressing mood through the simple
breakdown of life, success, love, and death. The beauties
of life are compiled into a short monologue that’s over
almost as soon as it began. With this, the reader is left to
consider their own life and what “stage” they’re in now.
The speaker knows that this is the way the world is,
everyone listening to his words is all going to end up back
where they started as children and there’s no way to
change that fact.
Conclusion :
This poem gives us a brief summary of
the cycle that every man’s life must
follow. According to the poet, the seven
parts that a man plays in his life are-
infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice,
old man, and finally a child again at the
time of death. The poem describes the
world as a stage where all people are
actors who must act out these seven
acts or stages of life.