First Folio, Shakespeare - 0212 (All the world's a stage)

Sculpture 'Seven Ages Of Man'-Queen Victoria Street-London

"All the world's a stage" is the phrase that begins a

monologue In theatre, a monologue (from el, μονόλογος, from μόνος ''mónos'', "alone, solitary" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes a ...

from

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's pastoral comedy ''

As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 h ...

'', spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII Line 139. The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play and catalogues the seven stages of a man's life, sometimes referred to as the seven ages of man.

Text

Origins

World as a stage

The comparison of the world to a stage and people to actors long predated Shakespeare. Richard Edwards' play '' Damon and Pythias'', written in the year Shakespeare was born, contains the lines, "Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage / Whereon many play their parts; the lookers-on, the sage". When it was founded in 1599 Shakespeare's own theatre, The Globe, may have used the motto ' (All the world plays the actor), the Latin text of which is derived from a 12th-century treatise. Ultimately the words derive from ' (because almost the whole world are actors) attributed to

Petronius Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
The Merchant of Venice ''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. Although classified as ...

'', Shakespeare also had one of his main characters,

Antonio Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular ma ...

, comparing the world to a stage: In his work ''

The Praise of Folly ''In Praise of Folly'', also translated as ''The Praise of Folly'' ( la, Stultitiae Laus or ), is an essay written in Latin in 1509 by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and first printed in June 1511. Inspired by previous works of the Italian hum ...

'', first printed in 1511, Renaissance humanist

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...

asks, "For what else is the life of man but a kind of play in which men in various costumes perform until the director motions them off the stage."

Ages of man

Zehen eygenschaft des altters der menschen BM 1872 0608 351 (cropped)

Likewise the division of human life into a series of ages was a commonplace of art and literature, which Shakespeare would have expected his audiences to recognize. The number of ages varied: three and four being the most common among ancient writers such as

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...

. The concept of seven ages derives from medieval philosophy, which constructed groups of seven, as in the

seven deadly sins The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings. Although they are not directly mentioned in the Bible, there are parallels with the seven things ...

, for theological reasons. The seven ages model dates from the 12th century. King

Henry V Henry V may refer to: People * Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026) * Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125) * Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161) * Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173–1227) * Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (121 ...

had a tapestry illustrating the seven ages of man. According to T. W. Baldwin, Shakespeare's version of the concept of the ages of man is based primarily upon

Pier Angelo Manzolli Pier Angelo Manzolli was a name used for the author of the book ''Zodiacus vitae'', who is believed to be the Neapolitan poet Marcello Stellato, in Latin Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus (born ca. 1500 - died in Cesena before 1551). The persona of ...

's book ''Zodiacus Vitae'', a school text he might have studied at the Stratford Grammar School, which also enumerates stages of human life. He also takes elements from

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom ...

and other sources known to him.

References

External links