All the World’s a Stage
Figurative Language
"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;
Then the whining school-boy, 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 honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the
justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly
voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes,
sans taste, sans
everything."
Simile
consonance Alliteration
Anaphora Metaphor
Hyperbole
Personification
Repetition
In Shakespeare’s poem All
the World’s a Stage, he is stating the seven ages of man. The
beginning of a man’s life is the infant stage. He is too young to remember
anything and is helpless. Not long after is the young schoolboy. He doesn’t
look forward to school and longs to play and have fun. Then a lover, sweet and
innocent with no longing besides the warm touch of a woman. Eventually we come
to the soldier, with a hard heart and seeking battle. Then the middle aged man,
not as useless as an old man, but not capable the feelings of a lover or
soldier. The sixth shift is the sweet wise man with nothing to do but admire the
good ole days. Last of all, a man in another world that is lost and dead. This
is the seven stages of a man’s life
Personal associations
This poem reminds me of my
grandpep discussing the “good old days” and his life stories. My grandpep
always used to tell me he used to have to walk to school everyday. I can just
see the little school boy being my grandpep “creeping like a school boy
unwilling to school”. Then when my grandpep was a soldier and used to tell me
of his great battles. He said he used to be so impatient just to set his feet on
the grass and be ready to fight for his country. He is just like the man
“sudden and quick in quarrel” in the poem.
Today my grandpep sits on
his couch “with spectacles on nose” speaking of the times of his boyhood and
remembering what life used to be. All these stages of life remind me of my
lovable grandpep full of life, stories and wisdom.
Theme
The theme of this poetic
masterpiece is that life passes by before you can look back on it. There are 28
lines about the stages of a man's life. That’s all. Life goes by to short to
live it bored and out of the realm of your actions. Throughout this whole poem
Shakespeare describes the life of man. Each stage is quick when you put the
stages into words. On the contrary the man goes threw many years of theses
stages. He has many times to accomplish stuff and to fail at it. But Shakespeare
is saying no matter what, keep to your hard work in life, it will repay itself
in the end. As the old man at the end of the poem thinks of his “eventful
history” and is honored of his life. That’s what every man should seek for.
Literary or other art associations
All the World’s a Stage
contains the life of a man and each
step he takes. This poem reminds me of the major motion picture Forest Gump, the
most epic movie in this generation. Forest Gump tells his life story until he is
in his mid 30’s on a park bench to numerous characters in the story. The movie
goes through his childhood like the young school boy in the poem. The third
stage is the young lover which Forest becomes to a girl named Jenny. After that
he becomes a soldier for the Vietnam War. In the poem one of the stages is a
“soldier full of strange oaths”, which is pretty ironic sense forest gets to
play ping pong in the army after is “buttocks” injury. Forest Gump and
Shakespeare’s 7 stages of life are very similar and maybe the creator of
Forest Gump used Shakespeare’s poem as one of the basses of the movie.
Shifts
of All the World’s a Stage
Throughout this intriguing poem there are many shifts. Most
poets believe this whole poem has countless shifts. There are exactly seven
shifts in this piece of literature, for the number of changes in a man’s life.
There is the change from an infant to a young schoolboy. Preceding his young boy
acts he transforms into a mature yet naïve man, in and out of foolish love. In
the middle of the poem the man shifts to a soldier, opposite of a lover, rough
and hard with no emotion in his eyes. Right after the soldier he transforms into
a respectable mature middle-aged man. Before his eyes he becomes an old senile
lad wishing he could still be the lover he knew he once was. As you can tell
these are all shifts of this man’s life, as in addition to poem’s shifts.
They are one in the same.
Author’s
Life
The life of William Shakespeare is much unknown to many
historians around the world. What we do know about him is that he was born in