All the worlds a stage.

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Shakespeare did not invent the metaphor; 'All the worlds a stage': it was already in common use by the 16th century and he would have expected his audiences to recognise it.



In limerick

The poem was compressed into limerick form by the historian Robert Conquest:
Seven ages: first puking and mewling,
Then very pissed off with your schooling,
Then romances and then fights,
Then judging chaps' rights,
Then sitting in slippers, then droolin
The whole world is a stage", says Shakespeare in a poem and by associating ideas: the stage as a chessboard or a piano keyboard cannot have but an ambivalent role: the theater stage and the musical stage.

3 comments:

S.I. Ahmed said...

The full passage being:

"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;
And then the whining school-boy, 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 honour, 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 lin'd,
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 slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, 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." — Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)

Aamir Bhagani said...

its a mockery of one of the most meaningful poems written in history..
what u wrote sounds like a world of someone whos bent on suppressing all the goodness in life thats there ....

A New Beginning said...

We believe in history by believn in what others wrote and that gives it the flavour of a true story. Your thought came as a surprise to me!Great post thanks!!

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