All the World’s a Stage-William Shakespeare

                                            All the World’s a Stage-William Shakespeare

Introduction:

William Shakespeare was the greatest English poet-dramatist that the world has ever known. He was a prolific writer during the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages of British theatre. He wrote Thirty-eight plays, Two narrative poems, One hundred and Fifty-Four sonnets, and a variety of other poems. William Shakespeare continues to be one of the most important literary figures of the English language.

About the Poem:

“All the World’s a Stage” has been taken from As You Like It (Act II, Scene VII). The lines are by Jaques. He compares the different stages in a man’s life to a part of a play. According to him, a man begins by being a baby in the first act of the play and ends as an old man facing death in the last act.

Comparison- Life and Drama:

            Man passes through seven phases of life accordance to their age. Shakespeare renders a message that all are merely players in the drama of life.

                                    “All the world’s a stage,

                                    And all the men and women merely players.”

No one lives forever, but plays his or her part and departs. At birth, they enter a stage, and during death, they leave it.

                                    “They have their exists and entrances,”

Seven stages of Human Life:

            The first stage is Infant stage. In this stage the child always mews pukes and stay helplessly in the arms of the nurse. The second stage whining school boy, stays unwilling to go to school. He is hesitant to leave the protected environment and he is not confident to take his own choice or responsibility. In the next stage of being a lover, dominated by Sentiments and emotions, he tries to express his feelings in the forms of ballad.

            The fourth stage is that of a soldier. He is easily aroused and is hot-headed. He always works to make reputation, which lasts only for a short period of time. Justice is considered as the fifth stage. In this stage, he has acquired enough knowledge through his experience. Additionally, he assumes that he has gained enough prosperity and social status. In the pantaloon, considered as the sixth stage, man starts to lose his former self. He becomes lean, weak losing his firmness and assertiveness. The last stage is the Second Childhood phase, where a man depends on others for everything, as he has no teeth, no eyes, no taste. “Second childhood, and mere oblivion” experiences nothing.

Infancy	Baby
Boyhood	Schoolboy
Adolescence/ Teenage	Lover
Youth	Soldier
Middle Age	Judge
Old Age	Pantaloon
Death	Second Childhood

 

Conclusion:

            William Shakespeare compares Life to a drama, world to a stage and human beings to actors. This shows the greatest irony in the lives of human beings.  The poem reflects the futility of humanity’s place in the world. Only the stage remains permanent, the rest of the things change constantly because of the factors like time, age and memory.