Boyertown PA
4-23-2026 12:57am

April 23: One-a-Day in Celebration of National Poetry Month & William Shakespeare's Birth and Death Day

by Jane Stahl

As part of my introduction to a course I taught at BASH--Shakespeare II, I reminded students that "Uncle Bill" is considered the gold medal winner of all writers--Numero Uno! I dismissed the theory that William was just a mediocre writer, that others actually wrote the plays and sonnets. Folks are welcome to their skepticism about the author; my interest is the works themselves, in the wide-ranging knowledge, the dramatic and poetic skills found in the  canon.  Whoever is responsible: Bravo! Brava!

And so, how does one choose what to share of William Shakespeare's works as a birthday tribute? Some lines from over 30 plays--comedies, histories, tragedies--all written in blank verse; one of 154 sonnets; or a lesser-known writing?  A collection of one-liners?  

My offering today is a speech given by one of his most well-known characters: Jaques from the comedy As You Like It. (Comedy for Shakespeare, by the way, is a play about love. There are funny lines and characters as we understand comedy woven throughout his plays.") 

Jaques, a cynical curmudgeon in the play, presents the progress, the stages, that human life takes. I have thought of the speech often throughout my life as I pass through the stages; and so, it takes its place besides other of my favorites: Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy, Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy, Lear's comforting words to Cordelia as they "sing like birds i' th' cage...live,/And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh/At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news" while in "a wall'd prison," Ophelia's heartbreaking offer of flowers following the death of her father: "violets...but they wither'd all when my father died"; Sonnet 18 "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" or the subversive Sonnet 130 "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun." 

For fun, however, please consider sending your favorite of Shakespeare's writings. Send to janeEstahl@comcast.net. Having one-a-day to share as National Poetry Month ends will be a nice capstone to this year's tribute to poetry!  Meanwhile, enjoy...

Speech: “All the World’s a Stage”

(from As You Like It, spoken by Jaques)

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;
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 lin’d,
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 slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, 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.

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