“The Seven Ages of Man” by William

Shakespeare: An opinion-oriented perspective

With the progress of the human civilization, there came a time when the idea of formation of
literature came to human minds. The main purpose of literature is to help humans exercise their
power of imagination. It is through the formation of literature that man for the first time in world
history, exercised his imagination and documented it for the long run. That was a great phase
because it was during this phase of history that fascination seemed realistic to man for the first time.
Anything that was untouchable, unthinkable and undoable became realistic. Man could do it, feel it,
and embrace it and all those could be done through expressions in the form of literature. Thus,
literature became the mirror of the society. Through literature, one could have an experience that
would not have been possible for that man to have under regular conditions.

One such great attempt to exercise imagination and document it was a poetry by William
Shakespeare … “The Seven Ages of Man.”

It is a poetry in which the poet has expressed his imagination. While expressing his imagination the
poet reached different phases of man’s life which the poet was not able to reach physically during
his lifetime. Thus, the poet did something undoable by using his power of imagination. Although he
himself was not in that phase, yet he could write about that stage of a man’s life. It is this way that
“The Seven Ages of Man” became one of the great examples of a poetry that was written to meet
the great objective of making fascination and imagination a hard-core reality and then documenting
those fascination and imagination for the generations to come.

The seven stages described in this poetry are the stage of infancy, the stage of boyhood, teen age,
youth, middle age, old age and finally the inevitable stage of death. Thus, the poet drew a
complete cycle of life.

The first stage described in “The Seven Ages of Man” is the stage of infancy (babyhood or early
childhood). This is the first stage of life. With a natural process called “birth” one enters this phase
of life. A person is most helpless in this inaugural stage of life. Everything is out of his control. He has
to depend on others for everything. Nothing is easy in this stage as with birth the person gets
introduced to the world for the first time. The person gets introduced to the worldly processes and
phenomena for the first time.

The stage of infancy is followed by the second stage. This is the stage of schoolboy. This is the stage
when the person gets introduced to formal education for the first time. It is that stage which can be
ornamentally described as the stage when the boy is set free but is everywhere in chains.
Shakespeare describes the boy as one who is reluctantly walking towards the school. It is as if he is
being forced to go to the school. That is why; the boy is walking towards the school. It can be
concluded from this frame that in this stage of life a person has to do things that he does not
understand. In this stage of life, a person has to do things the value of which is not clear to him. Thus,
this stage also keeps the person helpless. There are a lot of things happening around him that keeps
him busy and tied. And that is a similarity between the first stage and the second stage. In both of
these stages, a person gets controlled by others. The only point of difference is that the control of
others slowly but surely decreases to some extent from the first stage to the second stage.
The third stage is a very interesting phase of man’s life. It is in this phase that a man starts to get
attracted to the opposite sex. His main interest becomes a girl. It can be said that in this stage of life
for the first time the man realizes the significances of being a man. In an attempt to make himself,
available to his lady love the man in this stage starts to write poetries. He becomes sentimental and
sometimes in a constant effort to make himself presentable in front of his lady love he ridicules
himself. The significance of this stage of life is that it is the first stage that makes man independent.
His dependence on others is to the minimum extent.

In the next phase we encounter a young man. It is the stage of youth. It is a phase when the man is at
his fearless best. He is so fearless that he is eager to take all sorts of risks. He is passionate. He is bold.
He is prompt in his actions. He does not mind a fight in this stage of life. He is ready to do anything for
his beliefs. He is trying his best to build up his reputation. There is a lot of time ahead of him but he
has no patience to wait for what he is trying to achieve. He tries to do everything very quickly. He
is ready to risk everything he has got for what he is trying to achieve. This phase of life is easily the
most energetic phase of life. It is in this phase that the man is achieving all the experience but he is
not interested in that. It is in this phase that he is going through a journey but he is more interested
in the destination.

The fifth stage is the stage of middle age. In this stage of life, the man has developed an opinion. He is
fearless when it comes to sharing those opinions with others. By this phase of life, the man has
already made a name for himself. His main aim is to maintain his name and not defame himself at any
cost. It is the phase of prosperity. In this stage of life, the man has wealth and is ready to enjoy that.
He enjoys the finer things of life. He enjoys good food. He enjoys being respected by others. He
enjoys his name. He enjoys his position.

The fifth stage brings the man closer to the next stage which is the stage of old age. This is the stage
when the man starts to see the end for the first time. In this stage the man is at his lowest both
physically and mentally. He has a feeble voice. He has no control on others. He has lost charm and
influence on others around him. This is another stage when the man starts to feel helpless. He
dresses like an old man. He behaves like an old man. He looks at everything like an old man. He is
almost on the verge of an end.

Finally, comes the inevitable stage of life. It is death. The man slowly and gradually starts to get
weaker and weaker. He loses his teeth. He loses his hair. The man is without any strength. Gradually
he moves towards the end. He moves towards death.

The seven stages of life described in “The Seven Ages of Man” did not deal with the concept of
classifying a man’s life into various stages for the first time. In religious philosophies this has been
dealt with from times beyond the memory of man. The great scholar Aristotle classified man’s life
into four stages. From that viewpoint Shakespeare’s “The Seven Ages of Man” can be said to be an
extension of Aristotle’s thinking.

Shakespeare himself was from the world of acting and plays. Thus, he compared the world to the
stage of a play. He believed in the division of man’s life into various stages just as a director would do
with a play while directing it. From this standpoint, we can conclude that “The Seven Ages of Man”
lacks imagination. It is the result of reality. What the poet was in reality, whatever he saw and
 experienced in reality … in theatres and acting sessions … he wrote about that in this poetry. It is as if
here we find a reflection of the world-famous film director Fellini’s quote

“All art is autobiographical: A pearl is an oyster’s autobiography.”

But at the same time, we also have to remember that Shakespeare passed away before reaching
the sixth and the seventh stage. Still he found out ways to reach these stages of life and write about
them in this poetry. How could that have been possible without the exercising of imagination?

This is the uniqueness of “The Seven Ages of Man”. It introduces the readers, thinkers and analysts to
a point of indecisiveness and mental conflict. The result of this conflict is yet to be determined … “The
Seven Ages of Man” gets us food for thought.

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