Question

Read the poem again and write an appreciation of the poem in paragraph format.

Answer 1

The poem 'All the World's a Stage by William Shakespeare is taken from Shakespeare's play 'As you like it. It is a monologue (a loud speech to oneself) by one of the characters in the play. In this poem Shakespeare compares life to a stage. He has divided life into seven stages, each having its own varied qualities and features. The theme of the poem is the cycle of life. It tells us how one starts out as an infant helpless, without understanding, and ends the same way, without being aware of what is happening around one.

The poem is written in blank verse i.e. there is no rhyme scheme, but there is a steady rhythm of five beats in each line. There are many figures of speech. like Simile, Alliteration and Repetition, but the one that stands out is Metaphor. In the lines 'All the world's a stage. And all men and women are merely players', there is an implied comparison between two different things.

The special feature of the poem is the imagery. 
Many of the lines create a picture before our eyes and help us to imagine the seven stages in man's life. The narrative style used by the poet gives continuity to the poem, where one stage smoothly goes into the next. This is one of the most famous and quoted poems of Shakespeare. It is entirely metaphorical. My favourite line is 'All the world's a stage, And all men and women are merely players.' I like this line because it describes correctly how we must look at life. I like the poem because it shows us the cycle of life, of which everyone is a part.