8/13/2019 What is the Explanation of the Poem All the Worlds a Stage(Ms Word)

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What is the explanation of the poem all the worlds a stage?

In: William Shakespeare

It's not actually a poem, but a speech said by the character Jacques in Shakespeare's play As You Like It.

The voice we hear is not Shakespeare's but that of a chronically depressed and unemployed nobleman,

hanging around the court-in-exile of a deposed Duke. He is responding to the Duke saying that there are

some people who are even worse off than he is by replying that everybody is actually playing the same

role in life--we cannot aspire to an individual happiness greater than the misery which is the lot of all

men. (He's a bit of a mysogynist, so he doesn't talk about women at all, but if he did, he'd say the same

thing.)

'All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players' : Here, Jacques compares a mans'

life with that of a play set up in theater. He says that each mans' finite life is nothing but an act, and as

the man progresses in his life, the scenes and acts each shift accordingly.

'They have their exits and entrances' : He says that the entrance of a man's life is his birth, and his exit

his death. Then, he goes on to describe the seven stages of a mans life:

First comes the infant, who is completely helpless and has no clue of the world around him. He is

completely dependent on the people who dote on him - his mother and his nurse.

Then, he grows into a child, who is reluctant to go to school and trudges slowly. 'Morning face' reprents

the dawn of life as well as the tiny child's innocence.

Then he becomes a lover, who is sad about having to leave his mistress and pours out his feelings in the

form of ballads.

Then he becomes a soldier, who guards his reputation. with his life and will defend it with anything. He

is hot-tempered and ruthless, just like a leopard or ferocious wild cat. The 'bubble reputation' the poet

speaks of says that reputation is a lot like a bubble - it will burst at the slightest touch to it and it is

impossible to get it back after that.

Then he becomes a wise judge, full of witty quotes and whose life experiences allow him to advice

people. He compares people's misfortunes with his own and tells them how to solve them.By this time

he has become rather fat, something seen as a sign of prosperity.

Then, he becomes a weak, feeble old man who wears glasses and has shrunk to a thin, pitiful state and

has a shrill, high-pitched voice.

The last stage is that of a old man, who is almost like an infant again - oblivious of his surroundings and

who has lost everything in his life - material-wise as well as emotion wise.

8/13/2019 What is the Explanation of the Poem All the Worlds a Stage(Ms Word)

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2)The whole world is a stage, and all the men and women merely actors. They have their exits and their

entrances, and in his lifetime a man will play many parts, his life separated into seven acts. In the first

act he is an infant, whimpering and puking in his nurses arms. Then hes the whining schoolboy, with a

book bag and a bright, young face, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school. Then he becomes a lover,

huffing and puffing like a furnace as he writes sad poems about his mistresss eyebrows. In the fourth

act, hes a soldier, full of foreign curses, with a beard like a panther, eager to defend his honor and quick

to fight. On the battlefield, he puts himself in front of the cannons mouth, risking his life to seek fame

that is as fleeting as a soap bubble. In the fifth act, he is a judge, with a nice fat belly from all the bribes

hes taken. His eyes are stern, and hes given his beard a respectable cut. Hes full of wise sayings and

up-to-the-minute anecdotes: thats the way he plays his part. In the sixth act, the curtain rises on a

skinny old man in slippers, glasses on his nose and a money bag at his side. The stockings he wore in his

youth hang loosely on his shriveled legs now, and his bellowing voice has shrunk back down to a childish

squeak. In the last scene of our playthe end of this strange, eventful historyour hero, full of

forgetfulness, enters his second childhood: without teeth, without eyes, without taste, without

everything.