All the World's a Stage

For my poem blog this month, I decided to take a break from the ever cheerful Edgar Allan Poe and take up a different sort of poet, William Shakespeare and “All the World’s a Stage”. I felt that this was a great poem and analogy right now as we all enter into the time not only of the week of final exams but also into Christmas and other holiday celebrations to remember that we are all only here for a short time, and that we all ought to make the most of our time on the stage. That idea is powerfully expressed by Shakespeare’s beginning lines, “They have their exits and their entrances/And one man in his time plays many parts”. He then goes on to describe how each and every one of us plays seven different roles over the course of our lifetime, the first being that of an infant. While everyone does start out in a literal sense as an infant, it can better be interpreted how all people start off in a state of innocence and ignorance, and like a young child cannot interpret the world around us on our own, but must rely on the guiding wisdom of our parents. The state of infancy is one of naiveté, where there seems to be comfort in not knowing the true nature of the world. Yet ignorance is always ended by the same driving force: curiosity, found in the second and third stage with the “whining schoolboy” and “the lover/sighing like furnace with a woeful ballad made to his mistresses eyebrow”. Respectively, curiosity appears not only with the increased desire to learn with the schoolboy, but also with the growing desire to be with a woman as the boy grows into a man. The time of innocence is over as he is exposed to the wonders of adulthood, and reveling in his newfound knowledge and experience. He then finds himself in the fourth stage as a soldier, “Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard/Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel”. In this stage, the true test of adulthood is discovered, as the fantasies and aspirations of the young child are harshly swept aside in the brutal working world, one where the young man is forced to fight for his keep in his workplace and do everything he can do to survive and rise among the others, no matter the cost or consequence. The beauty of life slowly withers away as the man moves into the fifth stage, that of the justice, “Full of wise saws and modern instances/And so he plays his part”. The hard work that the man has put into his budding career has paid off, as he now finds himself at the top of the ladder as one who is both respected and carrier authority with his word. But just like every climax, once one has reached the top, there is only one place left to go: the sixth stage. Age begins to take its toll on the once great man, and he finds himself losing all the abilities that he has developed over his life. He begins to see how life is starting to repeat itself, as “his big manly voice/Turning again toward childish treble, pipes/And whistles in his sound”. With every passing day, the old man can only look at his reflection and see but a shadow of the person he once was, in a different time, in a different role. There is only one stage left, “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”. Death comes not as a grand finale, but as a slow painful closing of the curtain, and as the old man looks out into the darkened audience to get one last glimpse of the people watching his performance, he sees but a few pale faces, as most of them left a long time ago.

All the World's a Stage

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 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,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
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 slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, 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.

William Shakespeare