# All the World's a Stage analysis

All the World's a Stage — William Shakespeare (1623)

Jaques turns human life into a seven-part performance, from infancy to oblivion.

Full text from [As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII](https://poets.org/poem/you-it-act-ii-scene-vii-all-worlds-stage). Public domain in the US (The speech appears in the 1623 First Folio; Shakespeare’s work is public domain.).

## Summary

Jaques answers Duke Senior’s theater image by comparing every person to an actor. Each person enters, performs several roles, and eventually exits.

```
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
```

The seven ages move from comic snapshots to bodily decline and oblivion.[2]

## Meaning and interpretation

The extended metaphor suggests that identity changes with social roles: schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, and old man are performances as much as biological stages.[2]

```
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth.
```

The final “sans” sequence strips away the senses and roles that earlier ages use to define a person.

## Themes

### Aging and mortality

```
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
```

The return to dependence becomes a terrifying loss rather than a comforting cycle.

### Performance and identity

Stage vocabulary makes social identity legible as a succession of roles.

### Vanity and reputation

The soldier risks life for a reputation described as a fragile bubble.

## Form and meter

This dramatic monologue is written in mostly unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse. Flexible stresses and occasional feminine endings keep the speech conversational.[3]

Seven stages give the speech a compressed plot, while the final repetitions create a falling cadence.

## Literary devices

### Extended metaphor

```
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
```

Entrances and exits become birth and death; roles become life stages.

### Simile

```
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.
```

The snail makes reluctance physical and comic.

### Anaphora

```
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
```

Repeated “sans” removes one capacity at a time until nothing remains.

## Historical context

As You Like It was written around 1598–1600 and published in the First Folio in 1623. The speech is spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II, Scene VII.[4]

```
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
```

Jaques completes Duke Senior’s theater image and turns it into a darker philosophy of life.

## What critics say

> “This is the idea that Jaques takes as his starting point in his ‘seven ages of man’ speech.”
>
> — [Royal Shakespeare Company](https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeare-learning-zone/as-you-like-it/language/analysis)

> “A mixture of perfect iambic pentameter lines with lines containing feminine endings or even as many as thirteen syllables.”
>
> — [Royal Shakespeare Company](https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeare-learning-zone/as-you-like-it/language/analysis)

## Common questions

### What is the main meaning?

Life is presented as a sequence of changing roles that ends in old age, dependence, and death.

### What are the seven ages?

Infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, and second childishness with oblivion.

### What form does it use?

It is a dramatic monologue in mostly unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse.

## References

- [Academy of American Poets](https://poets.org/poem/you-it-act-ii-scene-vii-all-worlds-stage)

- [Royal Shakespeare Company](https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeare-learning-zone/as-you-like-it/language/analysis)

- [Royal Shakespeare Company](https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeare-learning-zone/as-you-like-it/language/analysis)

- [Academy of American Poets](https://poets.org/poem/you-it-act-ii-scene-vii-all-worlds-stage)

## Open the editor

Write with this poem’s meter in the editor: https://lyriic.com/write/iambic-pentameter