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Elective English—IV

Notes forgotten or unknown. He starts losing his ego and self-importance and returns to a childlike
innocence. In this stage a man loses all of his strength and senses. His memory weakens and five
senses start malfunctioning. He is overcome by senility and forgetfulness and loses his faculties
of sight, hearing, smell and taste, slowly but surely. Then he finally departs from the world
leaving behind a story rich in events.

Did u know? All the world’s a stage” is the phrase that starts a monologue from As You Like
It written by William Shakespeare, spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII. This
speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play. It sets the seven stages of a man’s
life, sometimes referred to as The Seven Ages of Man.

2.5.2 Analysis

Poet

Besides being the greatest dramatist of English literature, William Shakespeare is also a great
poet. William’s supremacy as a poet lies in this speech which is taken from his very popular
comedy “As you like it”.
Theme
In this poem William Shakespeare compares the world with the stage of drama. All human
beings are like actors who come in this world to play their respective roles. They enter the stage
of the world when they are born and exit from this stage when they die. During his life every
man plays seven parts and goes through seven stages. At the first stage he is an infant. He cries
loudly and vomits in his mother’s arms. In the second stage this individual is seen as a school
boy walking slowly to school. In the third stage, the school going child grows to become a
young lover. In the next stage this man becomes a soldier. At the fifth stage the man plays the
role of a judge. At the sixth stage this man becomes a silly old man and this stage of a man’s life
is marked with forgetfulness. At the seventh stage the man enters his second childhood which is
followed by death.
Language
The simple and beautiful language of the poem enables even an ordinary reader to read and
understand this poem well. His selection of words is really such that despite being in black verse
this poem is full of music and melody.

Style
This entire speech is in black verse. The regularity in the pattern of lines and their rhythm gives
a feeling that we are listening to poetry.

Task Write an essay about The Seven Ages of Man as described by William Shakespeare
2.5.3 The Structure of Poem

The Seven Ages of Man is a poem written by William Shakespeare in blank verse, unrhymed
iambic pentameter. It includes five meters or ten syllables. It is elaborately used by Shakespeare
and Christopher Marlowe in their masterworks. In this poem, the poet gives rhyme to a few
lines. In last line of the poem, a regular rhythm of the verse can be seen. Five syllables are

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