“The Seven Ages of Man” WilliamShakespeare

Mr Khalid KhanDefence Authority Degree

CollegeEnglish, Grade XI

“The Seven Ages of Man”William Shakespeare

“The Seven Ages of Man”

• Speaker – Jaques (a character from Shakespeare’s As You Like It)

• The poem is an example of an extended metaphor. What is the metaphor being extended throughout this poem?

“The Seven Ages of Man”

• Stages of man in the poem– (1) Infancy – “mewling and puking”– (2) Child – “whining school boy”– (3) Youth of a Lover – “sighing like furnace”– (4) Later Youth of a Soldier – “bearded like the

pard”– (5) Maturity and Middle Age of a Judge – “in fair

round belly”

“The Seven Ages of Man”

• Stages (cont.)– (6) Old Age – “spectacles on nose”– (7) Senility – “second childishness

• In As You Like It Jaques is a cynic, a man who doubts the goodness and kindness of human beings. Explain how your reaction to the poem changes once you know Jaques’ personality.

Pre-listening stageHow old are you?Will you please count exactly how old are you? How many years, months and days are you old?And how many years are you left with?How old are these leaves?What stages they have been through in their lives?What about a human being, do we have different stages in our lives?How many? what are they?

While-listening stage• Teacher will ask students to pay attention to

the listening and see how many stages speaker is mentioning in his speech?

• Student will listen and then teacher will elicit from students what the listened.

• Excercise01:• Now teacher will provide a handout and ask

students to study and fill the blanks if they can, then they will listen again the recording and fill in the remaining blanks.

•

Exercise01

S.No Stage of life State 1 first infant2 second3 lover45 fifth6 Old age7 Last stage

While-listening stagecontinued

• Excercise02:• Students will listen again and complete the

second chart of activities typical to each age.• Exercise03: • Teacher will quickly elicit from students the

figure of speech given in the chart and discuss. Student will listen the poem again and fill the chart of figure of speech. Teacher will play the recording and will stop at appropriate gaps.

Exercise02

S.No State Activities/ has things

1 Infant Mulling and puking in the nurses arms

2 School boy

3 Lover

4 Soldier

5 Justice

6 Old age

7 Second childishness

Exercise03

S.No. Figure of speech Examples from the poem

1 Metaphor

2 Simile

3 Alliteration

4 Onomatopoeia

5 Repetition

Post-listening stage

• Discussion. Poetry has extended meaning, deeper ideas and profoundness in itself. When Shakespeare says the world is a stage and ALL the people are actors here. They go through different stages in their lives. Do you think he meant school, a building when a boy goes to school and despises it. Or everybody is a lover or what about a soldier? Not everyone goes to army. Discuss the metaphorical meanings of these ages/ stages in a group of four. The leader will report the finding to the class.

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