Analysis of 7 Ages of Men

 The infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's
arms.
 The whining school-boy, with his satchel and
shining morning face, creeping like a snail
unwillingly to school.
 The lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful
ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow.
 The soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded
like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden and quick
in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in
the cannon's mouth.
(Pard refers to the leopard; the soldier's beard is
being compared to a leopard's whiskers.)
 The justice, in fair round belly with good capon lin'd, with
eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and
modern instances.
(A capon is a fattened chicken prepared as a delicacy,
and lin'd here means more like "stuffed." Proverbially, a capon
refers to a bribe. Wise saws refers to old sayings, and modern
instances are trite sayings.)
 The lean and slipper'd pantaloon, with spectacles on nose
and pouch on side, his youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too
wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning
again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound.
(A pantaloon is a foolish old man.)
 Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history,
is second childishness and mere oblivion; sans teeth,
sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
(Here, mere means "complete." Second childishness and
mere oblivion is a fancy way of saying "old age and death.")
 Stage 1, Infancy:
 A helpless baby, just crying and throwing up.
 Stage 2, Schoolboy:
 This is where his formal education starts but he is not
entirely happy with school. His mother is ambitious for him
and has washed his face thoroughly before sending him off
to school but he goes very slowly and reluctantly.
 Stage 3, Teenager:
 He’s grown into his late teens and his main interest is girls.
He’s likely to make a bit of a fool of himself with them. He
is sentimental, sighing and writing poems to girls, making
himself a bit ridiculous.
 Stage 4, Young man:
 He’s a bold and fearless soldier – passionate in the causes
he’s prepared to fight for and quickly springs into action.
He works on developing his reputation and takes risks to
that end.
 Stage 5, Middle aged:
 He regards himself as wise and experienced and
doesn’t mind sharing his views and ideas with
anyone and likes making speeches. He’s made a
name for himself and is prosperous and respected.
As a result of his success he’s become vain. He
enjoys the finer things of life, like good food.
 Stage 6, Old man:
 He is old and nothing like his former self – physically
or mentally. He looks and behaves like an old man,
dresses like one and he has a thin piping voice now.
His influence slips away.
 Stage 7, Dotage and death:
 He loses his mind in senility. His hair and teeth fall
out and his sight goes. Then he loses everything as
he sinks into the oblivion of death.
 ANALYSIS:
Shakespeare wants to render a message through
his poem, “The Seven Ages of Man” that men and
women are ‘merely players’ in the drama of life.
They are termed as ‘merely players’ because no
one lives forever but plays his or her part and
departs. At birth, they enter a stage and during
death, they leave it. Man passes through seven
phases of life in accordance with their age
 Structure:
The poem is composed in free verse. The style is
narrative. The poem describes seven different
stages of life in brief but has a powerful impact
throughout.
 Metaphor:
Metaphor is that figure of speech where comparison of
two different things are implied but not clearly stated.
Examples of metaphor in the poem are as follows,-
*All the world’s a stage
*And all men and women are merely players
*seeking the bubble reputation (reputation has been
termed as short-lived like a bubble)
 Simile: A simile is a figure of speech in which two
dissimilar objects are compared and the comparison is
made clear by the use of terms like ‘like’, ‘such as’ and
so on. Examples of simile in the poem are,
*Sighing like furnace
*creeping like a snail
 Alliteration: Alliteration is the close repetition of the
consonant sounds at the beginning of words to facilitate
narration. Example of alliteration in the poem is,
*shrunk shank

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 The infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's

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