ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Metaphor and Symbol The Seven Ages of Man speech opens with a metaphor in which Jaques compares the world to a stage in a theatre and men and women to actors playing roles on such a stage. The idea of comparing the world to a stage was not new when Shakespeare wrote it.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Seven Ages of Man is a series of paintings by Robert Smirke, derived from the famous monologue beginning all the world’s a stage from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII. The stages referred are: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon and old age.

Detailed explanation-3: -The most famous speech in As You Like It is the Seven Ages of Man, which begins ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’ (Act 2, Scene 7). Michael Horden playing Jaques, the character in As You Like It who delivers the ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech.

Detailed explanation-4: -Note: these lines come from Act II Scene VII of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. In summary, Jaques’ ‘All the world’s a stage’ speech acts as a sort of microcosm of As You Like It: arguing that life is one big performance, and that theatre and illusion are both noble arts and somehow transcend the literal stage.