Emily Dyer
999610229
Professor Ivan Kalmar
Submitted: November 14, 2012
“ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE” AND THE CONSISTENCY OF
SHAKESPEARIAN THOUGHT
William Shakespeare began a revolution in the English language. He created
“somewhere in the vicinity of seventeen hundred words—far more than any other writer
in any language” (Marche 2011:24) and “invented many expressions that have entered
daily life” (Marche 2011:28). He was also influential in thought, and “even if
Shakespeare was not a philosopher in the sense of writing essays or treatises about
philosophical positions and proposing an embracing philosophical scheme… [his
writings] reveal a great mind” (Bevinton 2008:1). Perhaps unlike any other artist,
Shakespeare shows great depth of thought not only in his tragedies, but in his comedies
as well.
In As You Like It, a 1599 pastoral-style comedy, Shakespeare presents one of his
most famous and frequently quoted speeches, the “all the world’s a stage” or stages of
life speech, which begins, “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” (Shakespeare 1599:44). This speech presents the idea
that life is an act and that age and personality are simply artificial constructions.
However, the “suggestion is hardly reducible to the platitude of everybody playing
roles… it is an ontological proposition implying a fundamental continuity between the
world of theatre and the theatricality of the wider world” (Hastrup 2004:223). The speech
implies that theatre is the most natural art, because of this connection between theatre and
1 life. It further shows a fundamental characteristic of man, the ability to adapt to differing
expectations and environments.
Shakespeare, however, did not create this concept. John Salisbury employs “totus
mundus agit histrionem”, which translates to to “the whole world plays the actor” or “all
the world’s a stage,” in his 1159 work Policraticus. Juan Luis Vives turns this expression
into a brief allegory in which one man can play the parts of all others in his 1518 work
Fabula de Homine. In addition, John Calvin uses a reference to God’s “dazzling theatre”
in 1559 in Institutes (West 2008:5-8). Shakespeare himself used this metaphor before As
You Like It; totus mundus agit histrionem became the motto of the Globe Theatre, the
venue of Shakespeare’s acting company the Chamberlain’s Men, in 1599, just prior to the
writing of As You Like It (Richard 2007:1).
This idea carries forward to the modern day as well; it has been reinforced by the
fact that, “it is a recurrent feature of Stoic thought,” the most modern logical form, “that
the philosopher is one who recognizes that every person plays a role in life” (West
2008:4). As such, the phrase “all the world’s a stage” continues to be very common in
literature and pop culture. Isaac Jackman’s 1777 play All the World’s a Stage refers to the
cultural differences between Irish, British, and French people as dramatic construction.
The 1910 short film All the World’s a Stage, directed by Harry Solter, is about a man
who misinterprets his actress wife’s actions towards his best friend as sexual. In his 1985
book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil
Postman states, “For the message of television as a metaphor is not only that all the world
is a stage, but that the stage is located in Las Vegas, Nevada,” (Postman 1985:63)
implying that television as a medium forces everyone into more showy roles, making
2 people act like caricatures of themselves. Lorrie Moore, a post-modern short story writer
writes in her first full length novel, Anagrams, “all the world’s a stage we’re going
though,” (Moore 1986:25) implying that our world is just part of a larger scheme, using a
different meaning of the word ‘stage’. Monique Duval says in her 2000 book The
Persistence of Yellow: A Book of Recipes for Life, “What do angels look like/ I saw one
today wering [sic] gaudy jewelry, spoke with a thick Spanish accent, quoted
‘Chakespeare.’ [sic] She said ‘all the world’s a stage and sometimes you just gotta role
with los punches’,” (Duval 2000:75) altering the meaning of Shakespeare’s quote to
imply that life relies on improvisation.
Each of these artists alters the meaning of “all the world’s a stage” to suit their
own philosophical or moral bend. Iris Murdoch, though, presents a very significant
interpretation of the quote in her 1978 Booker Prize winning novel The Sea, The Sea
because she brings both brings a new philosophical bend to the quote and retains some
faith to the original, making the quote imminently more relevant and indicating the
timelessness of the idea.
The novel The Sea, The Sea centers on the obsessions of a former playwright and
director, Charles Arrowbury, as he writes his memoirs by the sea. The book is written in
journal form, and mostly consists of Charles’s musings on his life and his career. He says
that, “emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. In the middle
they are acted. This is why all the world is a stage,” (Murdoch 1978: 33) at the beginning
of a long section on the nature of art and life.
Like Shakespeare, Murdoch uses this quote to emphasize not only life as dramatic
action, but also the similarity between the theatre and real life. Her narrator continues to
3 say theatre “is like life even though it is outwardly the most factitious of all the arts… the
theater must, if need be, stoop—and stoop—until attains that direct, that universal
communication which other artist can afford to seek more deviously and at their ease”
(Murdoch 1978:33-34). Murdoch emphasizes the simplicity of performance and the
aptitude of theatre to forming real connections with people; it is truly art as a reflection of
life.
This view of theatre as a reflection of life is particularly relevant to both Murdoch
and Shakespeare because performance was essentially the medium of the day, both in
Murdoch’s time and in Shakespeare’s. The Elizabethan Era is known as the Golden Age
of English popular theatre; theatre best represented the excesses of that period (Hattaway
1982:1-5). It allowed “overlapping institutions and spheres of influence” and created
“solidarity of the collective group” in way that no other medium could in the deeply
hierarchal society of the time (Manley 2011:533). Iris Murdoch’s wrote her version in the
1970s, a time when “[a]rt had strayed away from pre-twentieth century mimesis or the
interpretation of reality through imitation… [because] thoughtful processing was no
longer possible,” meaning processing of abstract literary and artistic ideas was replaced
by a more simplistic “visual culture.” (Bell 1976:107-110). This brought new importance
to art that directly imitated life and did not require interpretation, specifically television,
and also, to a lesser degree, theatre. Thus, both Iris Murdoch’s culture and Shakespeare’s
were centered on performance, making “all the world’s a stage” very apt, in terms of its
emphasis on the connection between theatre and life.
However, the context of the quote varies massively in these two works. In As You
Like It, Jaques gives the “all the world’s a stage” speech after observing the actions of the
4 other characters; he sees Rosalind pretending to be a man, and Ganymede pretending to
be Rosalind, and the many other physical, emotional and spiritual changes in the play,
and channels them into his speech. Charles Arrowbury, on the other hand, comes to this
conclusion after a lifetime of observing himself and his theatre. This reflects the nature of
the media in which the ideas are presented. Plays demand “authorial anonymity” (Todd
1979:20) and seek to represent using images, whereas novels must reflect the author, at
least in that “the author creates the character” (Todd 1979:15) and are generally more
introspective. Thus, it makes sense that a character in a play would form a conclusion
based on observation and a character in a novel, based on self-consideration. The
contextual difference is also a product of the times in which the works were created. The
Elizabethan culture was more collective, depending on “social unity and the official state
religion” (Jensen 2011:511), and the 1970s characterized by “remaking, remodeling,
elevating, and polishing one’s very self… and observing, studying, and doting on it”
(Wolfe 1976:277).
The two interpretations also differ in where they see roles being played.
Shakespeare presents each age as a separate act, summed up in the explanation of the
Seven Ages of Man later in the “all the world’s a stage” speech from As You Like It:
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, 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;
5 And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd 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.
whereas Murdoch simply emphasizes emotion as performance. This reflects differences
in the understanding of social life. Social acting is emphasized in Shakespeare’s version
of the quote, as in Murdoch’s, but Shakespeare is interested in gender and age, while
Murdoch is interested in emotionality. This focus on gender and age reflects the deep
social strata in Shakespeare’s world, wherein “everyone… agreed on the importance of
social hierarchy...[and] were alarmed about the ways in which people failed to respect
established order” (Amussen 2011: 271) and where “hierarchies were made visible on a
daily basis,” (Amussen 2011: 275) in the most basic acts. Although most behavior in the
1970s could also be said to be artificial action, the hierarchy was much less pronounced,
and breaking the hierarchy no longer harshly punished. Murdoch thus sees interpersonal
relationships, more than societal behavior, as performance. She also wrote during the “me
decade,” the decade of “‘New Age’ and personal awareness movements” (Kaufman
2009:5) that drew the focus more to the individual over the collective. This is again
reflected in Murdoch’s narrow statement about the nature of individual emotion when
contrasted with Shakespeare’s more general statement about the nature of societal
interaction.
Thus, Iris Murdoch’s reinterpretation of “all the world’s a stage” both emphasizes
the timelessness of Shakespeare’s idea and reinterprets the dated context. Her reuse
6 shows evidence of the increased individuality of the 1970s compared to the 1590s, and
that in novels as compared to plays. It also reinforces a basic philosophical bend that has
existed since at least the 1100s, the idea of life as performance. In “The Sea, The Sea, and
in the many other works that reuse the quote “all the world’s a stage,” it is evident that
much of Shakespeare’s philosophical bias is still relevant.
7 Bibliography
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Conundrum Revisited." Theatre Notebook. 61. no. 3 (2007).
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Duval, Monique. The Persistance of Yellow: Book of Recipes for Life. London:
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Hattaway, Micheal. Elizabethan Popular Theatre. Oxford: Routledge, 2005.
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Murdoch, Iris. The Sea, The Sea. London: The Hogarth Press, 1978.
8 Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death:Public Discourse in the Age of
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Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
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West, William N. "Knowledge and Performance in the Early Modern Theatrum
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