Poem Analysis

 I am going to write poem analysis of the poems I have read.
There will be some more of these reports.

Poem Report #1

All the world’s a stage                          by William Shakespeare

 William Shakespeare made a poem out of human beings. He thought every human beings that get born have seven ages to master. He tries to explain the life cycle of the people in this poem. This poem is a matter of fact tone. There are no personal emotions in this poem but just the fact. Interestingly it is not as hard and formal like as it seems.

 There are all kinds of imagery in this poem. First of all when the poem says ‘ mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.’ They have both have visual and auditory imagery. When an infant mewls, he or she is crying which gives you the sound immediately. Puking could also be an auditory imagery but also visual imagery. ‘Whining school boy, with his satchel and shining morning face,’ this gives you a visual imagery and auditory imagery of a schoolboy ready to go to school. He whines because he is not willing to go to school. This is auditory imagery. His shining morning face is a visual imagery of a schoolboy all washed and brushed. ‘Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard’ this is an excellent way to describe a soldier. This shows a visual and auditory imagery of a soldier. Swearing every time because they live harsh which gives you an auditory imagery, bearded like the pard, which gives you a visual imagery of a very messy beard of a soldier. The next stage has a very well described judge with lots of visual imagery. ‘In fair round belly with good capon lined, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances.’ Now the man became a judge after finishing his military. He gets rich and well paid. The poem shows how he looks and how he acts. This shows a clear difference between the soldier stage and the judge stage of a man. Now it comes to the last stage where the man becomes an old man. The poem describes this as, ‘lean and slippered pantaloons, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side.’ All of them are visual imagery. But there is also an auditory imagery. ‘His big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble, pipes.’ This gives you an auditory imagery of an old man speaking with trembling voice. So this is how William Shakespeare described the seven stages of man. There are a lot of visual and auditory imagery but they are all matter of fact imagery. Every single imagery that he gives you, you can accept it and think back you own self.

 William Shakespeare illustrates human beings as players in the stage and the Earth the stage. And he describes that every player has seven parts to say before they exit the stage. The entering of the stage is the birth of one child and the exit of the stage is the death of one man. When William Shakespeare describes the schoolboy, he says the schoolboy creeps like snail. Since snail is slow at moving from here to there, this could mean that the schoolboy is not willing to go to school and he goes as slows as he can manage to go. William Shakespeare describes the honor of a soldier as a bubble reputation. A bubble is very quick to be popped and made again. So William Shakespeare basically wanted to tell you how the honor of ones bravery could change so suddenly that there was no reason to even try for it.

 There are various kinds of figurative speech in this poem. First of all there is a simile in the schoolboy scene. When the poem says ‘creeping like a snail’ the ‘like’ shows that William Shakespeare used a simile to show how slow the schoolboy is. When the scene changes to the lover the poem uses another simile saying ‘like a furnace.’ Furnace is the hot iron you have in factory, which burns and create fire. So this could mean that the lover was very heated and enthusiastic in this love that he was like a furnace. The scene changes to the soldier and the poet says his beard is like a pard. Pard is an animal like cheetah. Its fur should have been messy. So William Shakespeare describes soldier’s beard as the fur of a pard. This is a simile. Some phrases could have been exaggerated a bit but everything is what we go through every day. This still shows the matter of fact tone in the poem.

 Shakespeare has a strong character with every piece he creates during his life. His plays, and poems shows the story of a human being. His poems shows the human cycle, which is quite obvious and there is nothing special about it. But when he explains it, it becomes really interesting.

And this is the poem I saw before writing this report.

All the World's a Stage

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. 

William Shakespeare

I have been reading some Shakespeare's plays. 

I found out that Shakespeare also wrote poems. So I picked one and wrote a poem analysis about it.