Question

Listen to this extract from Shakespeare's play As You Like It. As you listen, read
the poem aloud; you can do this more than once.

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 honour, 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.

About the Poet
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. He is
considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time. He wrote 154 sonnets, two
long narrative poems and about three dozen plays. Shakespeare used poetic and
dramatic means to create unified aesthetic effects. In verse, he perfected the dramatic
blank verse.

Answer 1

Do it yourself