All the world 's a stage - wikipedia All the world 's a stage This article is about the Shakespeare monologue. For the live album by Rush, see All the World 's a Stage ( album ). For the television episode, see All the World 's a Stage ( Ugly Betty ). The line `` all the world 's a stage (... ) '' from Shakespeare 's First Folio Richard Kindersley 's sculpture The Seven Ages Of Man in London `` All the world 's a stage '' is the phrase that begins a monologue from William Shakespeare 's As You Like It, spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII. 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 : infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, Pantalone and old age, facing imminent death. It is one of Shakespeare 's most frequently quoted passages. 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. Then the whining schoolboy, 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 honor, 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 lined, 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 slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side ; His youthful hose, well saved, 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. Contents 1 Origins 1.1 World as a stage 1.2 Ages of man 2 See also 3 References 4 External links Origins The Seven Ages of Man by William Mulready, 1838, illustrating the speech World as a stage The comparison of the world to a stage and people to actors long predated Shakespeare. Richard Edwardes 's 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 Totus mundus agit histrionem ( All the world plays the actor ), the Latin text of which is derived from a 12th - century treatise. Ultimately the words derive from quod fere totus mundus exercet histrionem ( because almost the whole world are actors ) attributed to Petronius, a phrase which had wide circulation in England at the time. In his own earlier work, The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare also had one of his main characters, Antonio, comparing the world to a stage : I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano ; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one. -- Act I, Scene I In his work The Praise of Folly, first printed in 1511, Renaissance humanist Erasmus 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 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. The concept of seven ages derives from medieval philosophy, which constructed groups of seven, as in the seven deadly sins, for theological reasons. The seven ages model dates from the 12th century. King Henry V 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 Palingenius ' book Zodiacus Vitae, a school text he would have studied at the Stratford Grammar School, which also enumerates stages of human life. He also takes elements from Ovid and other sources known to him. See also The Seven Ages of Man ( painting series ) Ages of Man Riddle of the Sphinx Six Ages of the World Solomon Grundy Mere Oblivion ( short film ) References Jump up ^ William Shakespeare ( 1623 ). Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies : Published According to the True Originall Copies. London : Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed ( ward ) Blount. p. 194. OCLC 606515358. Jump up ^ Shakespeare 's Seven Ages of Man. By William Shakespeare. Van Voorst, 1848. ( Also, L. Booth and S. Ayling, 1864 Version. ) Jump up ^ Joseph Quincy Adams, Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas : A Selection of Plays Illustrating the History of the English Drama from Its Origin down to Shakespeare, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston ; New York, 1924, p. 579. Jump up ^ Marjorie B. Garber ( 2008 ). Profiling Shakespeare. Routledge. p. 292. Jump up ^ John Masters ( 1956 ). The Essential Erasmus. The New American Library. p. 119. Jump up ^ J.A. Burrow ( 1986 ). The Ages of Man : A Study in Medieval Writing and Thought. Oxford : Clarendon Press. Jump up ^ PROME, 1423 October, item 31, entries 757 -- 797, quoted in Ian Mortimer, 1415 -- Henry V 's Year of Glory, p. 45, footnote 2. Jump up ^ Thomas Whitfield Baldwin ( 1944 ). William Shakspere 's Small Latine and Lesse Greeke. 1. Urbana, Ill. : University of Illinois Press. pp. 652 -- 673. External links The dictionary definition of all the world 's a stage at Wiktionary William Shakespeare 's As You Like It Characters Rosalind Orlando Celia Jaques Touchstone Screen 1912 1936 1978 ( TV ) 1994 ( TV ) 2006 Related `` All the world 's a stage '' William Shakespeare 's The Merchant of Venice Characters Shylock Antonio Portia Jessica Sources The Jew of Malta On screen 1914 1916 1923 Shylock ( 1941 ) 1961 1969 1980 ( TV ) One Man Band ( unfinished ) Adaptations Le marchand de Venise ( 1935, opera ) Shylock ( 1987, musical ) The Merchant of Venice ( 1982, opera ) Derivative works Serenade to Music ( 1938 ) Shylock ( 1996 ) Yasser ( 2001 ) The Maori Merchant of Venice ( 2002 ) Related `` All that glitters is not gold '' `` All the world 's a stage '' `` Between you and I '' Quibble Letter and spirit of the law `` Ding Dong Bell '' `` The quality of mercy '' Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=All_the_world%27s_a_stage&oldid=801835261 '' Categories : Human development Monologues Shakespearean phrases Hidden categories : Articles containing Latin - language text Talk Contents About Wikipedia Bahasa Indonesia Edit links This page was last edited on 22 September 2017, at 04 : 53. 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Question: all the world's a stage monologue meaning
Answer: compares the world to a stage and life to a play