Analysis of All the World's a Stage
William Shakespeare 1564 (Stratford-upon-Avon) – 1616 (Stratford-upon-Avon)
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.
Scheme | ABCDEFGGHIHEGJKLMCNOPPQRGSJT |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10101 01010101010 1111001100 0110111101 1110101011010 10100101 10101111 0101011011 01001101010 10110101010 1111011010 1111010101 100101001010 10010010 100010101010 011101111 1101011101 1111010100 0111110111 01010110 1100110111 1101110111 1111011101 10010110101 0100111111 1111010100 1101010100 111111110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,195 |
Words | 213 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 28 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 961 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 211 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 1:04 min read
- 686 Views
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"All the World's a Stage" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41362/all-the-world%27s-a-stage>.
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