What attitude toward life does the speaker seem to be expressing in The Seven Ages of Man?

Answer 1

He is happy and very nice to the stages of life. He is politely describing each stage with positive remarks.

Answer 2

First of all, the "Seven Ages of Man" is not a poem, although it is poetic. It is actually a speech given by a character called Jaques in a play by William Shakespeare called As You Like It. Jaques is living in exile in the forest with the former Duke, Duke Senior. Jaques is a chronically depressed guy, and the Duke is trying to cheer him up. They have just met Orlando, who is wandering about the forest starving, looking for food for himself and his servant. "See?", says the Duke, "There are people worse off than we are in this great stage of life." Jaques is going to refute this and he starts by picking up on the "great stage of life" idea by saying "All the world's a stage". His argument is that everyone goes through the same stages of life like different actors playing the same part in a play. Well, we may all start off as infants mewling and puking in the nurse's arms, but to suggest that everyone's life follows the pattern Jaques sets out is ridiculous. What about girls? What about guys who don't become soldiers? What about guys who do become soldiers, and while seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth get their heads blown off by the cannon and never get to be justices? Plainly this is rubbish, which we listen to because Jaques is amusing in his descriptions of caricatures of people. However, when he gets to the "last stage of all", the tone abruptly changes. The picture of a person in the last stages of life, ready for death which will really make us all "sans everything", reminds the Duke and the rest of us that what is depressing Jaques about life is not how badly off we are compared to others, but that life, for all of us, comes to an end.

Answer 3

"The Seven Ages of Man" is not a poem, even if it does appear in your poetry book. It's a speech lifted from the play As You Like It, in which it is spoken by the "melancholy man" Jaques. Jaques is one of these characters who is dominated by a humour, in this case melancholy. Such characters were popular in Shakespeare's day. Jaques could suck melancholy out of a song like a weasel sucks eggs; he found a reason to be depressed in everything.

So, when the Duke points out to him that there are some people on this stage of life who are worse off than him, Jaques responds with this speech, suggesting that everyone is just as badly off as everyone else because we are all the same. We are all playing parts and we all play the same parts. He then proceeds to sarcastically describe these caricatures of the stages of a man's life.

Shakespeare did not intend Jaques's speech to be taken seriously--it was another rant by that amusingly depressed man. And while it is true that everyone gets old and we cannot do anything about it (which is a universal truth if you like, if a not particularly profound one), it is not true that everyone's fortunes are exactly the same. While each man in his time may play many parts, his acts do not always make seven ages. The Duke is right and Jaques is wrong, no matter how eloquent he is about it.

Answer 4

You, know, you don't have to guess about this. That is because The Seven Ages of Man is a speech from a play and the attitude of the speaker is obvious if you watch the play. So, get out a film version of the Shakespeare's play As You Like It and watch it. The character you want to watch is Jaques. In the Kenneth Branagh version (probably the easiest to find) Jaques is played by Kevin Kline.

Answer 5

If you know your role in life, you know what to do in life.