Professor

Political Science

Govt. College

Gangapur City  Rajasthan, India 

Research Scholar

English

UOT

Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

English literature is rootless without William Shakespeare who, through his comedies and tragedies, poured down his own observations and perceptions. In each of them, he appears as a visionary who is able to present one or the other aspect of human life through his variety of characters. Though known chiefly for his world-famous four tragedies, namely, King Lear, Othello, Hamlet and Macbeth, he is equally notable for his comedies that he brings forth in many forms. What makes his plays worthy to be remembered and cited are the variety of plots and characters in his plays. Directly or indirectly many of the characters in his plays serve as his spokespersons and representatives.

Jaques in the famous Shakespearean pastoral-romantic comedy ‘As You Like It’ is acclaimed to be Shakespeare’s representative who, through his sensibility and philosophical approach, presents the gloomy aspect of human life. All his dialogues in As You Like It are the utterances of a highly sensible person who has a wide knowledge and experience of human life, but the most important one of them is his speech in Act-II, Scene-VII which pierces the hearts of the readers and which forces them to realize the worth of both the playwright and the character Jaques.  The seven stages of man as mentioned by Jaques include-Infancy at which the man is merely an innocent baby who spends his time in wailing and crying; the Schoolboy who unwillingly starts schooling and formal education; the Lover who seeks the whole world in his beloved and whose sole concern is his beloved; the Soldier who realizing the value of self-respect looks forward to gaining a reputation, even if it costs him his life; the Justice who is ready to impart his wisdom through his experiences; the Pantaloon who finds himself all shrunk in structure and personality, and all indifferent to his physical appearance, and Old Age when he depends on others for care.

Shakespeare’s famous play As You Like It is a unanimously approved comedy, ‘consisting of marriages, love affairs and songs, as well as a pastoral work, praising the country life in the Forest of Arden. In the play, the power of love and tolerance is emphasized with the happy ending and reconciliations at the end.’¹

All the important lines of action, such as, enmity between the dukes over the estate and property, the quarrel between Oliver and Orlando, Oliver’s conspiracy against Orlando, love-affairs between Oliver and Celia, Orlando and Rosalind, Silvius and Phebe etc. are taken from Lodge.²

It celebrates the superiority of life in country to the life in the city and court³, there are two characters with the name ‘Jaques’, first Jaques de Boys, the second son of Sir Rowland de Boys and the brother of Oliver and Orlando who only appears at the end of the play, and the melancholy Jaques attending Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden (Anthony Wolk).⁴ The melancholy Jaques who is addressed by name in the course of action, while the other Orlando and Oliver’s brother Jaques de Boys is identified in the Folio text as ‘Second Brother’ when he appears at the end of Act-V.⁵ ‘One of the most interesting aspects of the play is the insertion of the character of Jaques’⁶  that draws the attention of the readers and makes them ponder over the serious issues.

Jaques: A Melancholic Man

Critics are divided on the real worth of Jaques. Most of them call him melancholic, while some others of them call him fool. In As You Like It, Jaques is melancholic and static whose preference is to remain removed from the imprudence of love and always wishing he could speak his mind without reprehension (Heisenberg). His idea about impressing the Duke is that melancholy can make him perfect for it. His utterances, such as, “Give me leave to speak my mind,” and “Cleanse the foul body of th’ infected world” (II.vii.58–60) cause confusion in Duke Senior about his worth as a fool. It will not be an exaggeration to say about him that he is one of the most charming characters in the play whose temperament magnetically draws the readers towards him. His impression is worthy to be felt in the sense that even to this day, the opening words of his speech are quoted by the people all over the world.

Jaques’ Seven Ages Speech

‘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.

…………………….Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion;

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.’⁷

Form & Structure and Interpretation of the Speech

The speech is an apparent analogy of the different phases of human life. In form, it is a narrative poem, in nature a soliloquy, in tone all cynic and melodramatic. The poetic and dramatic beauty and grandeur lies in the use of imagery; metaphors such as, ‘All the world’s a stage’, ‘And all men and women are merely players’; similes, such as, ‘sighing like a furnace’, ‘bearded like the pard’, ‘creeping like a snail’; alliterations such as ‘shrunk shrank’, ‘plays his part’; personifications, such as, ‘Seeking the bubble reputation’, ‘in the cannon’s mouth’;  brilliantly organized timeline for the reader to follow through the passage of man’s life, employment of the rhythm of iambic pentameter, narrative style etc.

In its form and structure, the speech uttered by Jaques is a monologue encompassed in twenty-eight lines, and partly written in blank verse. Free from the rhyming pattern or scheme, the lines of the speech contain five sets of two beats, unstressed and stressed ones respectively. The speech on seven ages is an iconic monologue which is uttered by one man ‘Jaques’, and which reveals the presence of Duke Senior, Amiens, and Lords (Farukh Mithabha). ‘The speech beginning with ‘All the World’s a stage’ and ending with ‘Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything’ in Act 2, Scene 7 forms one of the most famous of Shakespeare’s monologues.⁸  It acts as a sort of microcosm of As You Like It.⁹

Seven Ages of Man

To Shakespeare, the world is a stage and men and women are actors on it. They take on seven distinct roles based on their ages. “The Seven Ages of Man", uttered by Jaques in As You Like It is one of the most famous passages in all of Elizabethan literature. ‘It is often included in anthologies as a separate poem demonstrating the remarkable power and beauty of Shakespeare's words. However, it is cynical and pessimistic in its metaphorical message, making the world a stage, life to a play and human beings actors in the gloomy drama of life.’ (Ardhendu De May 21, 2011)

When the banished Duke pours down his views on the human situation, Jaques, quite philosophically utters his immortal and oft-quoted speech concerning the seven stages of human life. In the speech, Jaques calls the world a stage on which man plays different parts in the play-like-life which starts with the birth of the child and closes with death. The seven stages of human life are as follows-

1.     Infancy, the first stage when the human being is a helpless baby with no knowledge about the things around him. ‘He cries and vomits in the nurse’s arms in his very childhood.’ (Supriya Maity, October 2, 2020)

2.     Whining schoolboy, the second stage of life which forces him to go to school all reluctantly and unwillingly. ‘This is the stage of boyhood. This is the stage when the person gets introduced to formal education for the first time and when he is set free but is everywhere in chains.’¹⁰

3.     The lover, the third stage which makes him feel that love is the only reality of life with nothing beyond it. The third stage is that of a lover who is lost in his thoughts.¹¹ At this stage, he makes himself ridiculous in trying to express his feelings of his lady’s love.

4.     The soldier, the fourth stage at which he is found hot-headed very young, energetic and full of curiosity and strength, and his ready to risk his life to do his duty to and not afraid of death and danger while fighting for his country.

5.     The justice, the fifth stage which enables him to realize his own wisdom won through the experiences of life. It is the stage when that brings him prosperity and social status. ‘Practically, his is a blend of custom, morality, religion, and education.’¹²

6.     Old Age or Old pantaloon, the sixth stage of life when he appears as a shell of his former self — physically and mentally. It is the stage which makes him the butt of others’ jokes having lost his firmness and assertiveness, and has a shrunk stature and personality. ‘With age, his voice has begun to fade; it is symbolic of his engagement with the world. His vision is dulled. He is most comfortable in his slippers and recliner.’(Chase Replogle)

7.     Last stage or Second childishness, without taste, without eyes, the seventh and last stage or second innocence which makes him mere oblivion and dependent on others for care and unable to interact with the world (Babitha Gunjute, 2014). It is the stage when enslaved by his incapability, he leads a life for which nobody around him cares and feels.

Objectives of The Study

1.     To produce a brief introduction to the famous tragedies and comedies written by the greatest Elizabethan dramatist William Shakespeare

2.     To concentrate on William Shakespeare’s famous pastoral and romantic comedy As You Like It

3.     To explore the personality traits and temperament of Jaques who serves Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden

4.     To quote and interpret the seven ages as described by Jaques.

Conclusion

William Shakespeare’s As You Like It is unanimously approved as a pastoral comedy with the ‘its apparent artlessness. The play serves both the courtly and the pastoral lives. It is the story of the intrigue and enmity of the brothers; it is the fun of the love-couples like Orlando and Rosalind who fall in love at first sight, of Oliver and Celia whose chance encounter in the Forest of Arden bring them closer to have eventually a knot of love and marriage between them, and of Silvius and Phebe whose love win in the end after the disclosure of the real identity of Rosalind.

Undoubtedly, each and every major and minor character in the play As You Like It is well-designed and purposefully introduced, but melancholic Jaques is especially designed to present William Shakespeare’s viewpoint on seven stages of human life that are faced universally irrespective of geographical differences. A dedicated lord to Duke Senior, Jaques has an exaggeratedly melancholy disposition. In As You Like It, he appears as a cynical observer of the surrounding world. We find him under the influence of Touchstone to such as extent that he himself wishes to be a fool for the sake of making use of his critical eye.

As it was the convention to write on the pastoral world full of shepherds and shepherdesses, Shakespeare too uses this convention of amusing effect when he makes the ultrapastoralist Jaques pretend that he is innocent of even the most ordinary technical terms of poetry.¹³ Duke Frederick usurps the dukedom from his brother, the rightful Duke Senior, and banishes him. Several of the characters seek refuge in the Forest of Arden where they learn of love and forgiveness in nature.

Jaques is introduces as a solitary wanderer in the forest of Arden.¹⁴ He plays a special role of ‘a proud, melancholic, philosophical, and a complex critic of the real life. Moreover, he carries a poster of motley-minded gentlemanliness with his ripe observation, cynical sight and experienced knowledge. However, even before Jaques appears in the play, he has been tagged with the name, ‘the melancholic Jaques’ (III.II.26) who has the expertise to moralize upon any spectacle no matter how ignorable it is.’¹⁵ ‘The poem "The Seven Ages of Man" is a part of the play "As You Like It", where Jacques makes a dramatic speech in the presence of the Duke in Act II, Scene VII. Through the voice of Jacques, Shakespeare sends out a profound message about life and our role in it.’ (Simran Khurana, 2020)

The speech’s seven ages are the inevitable stages of life, from infanthood to decrepitude, culminating in ‘mere oblivion’ (2.7.166) and the loss of all sensual apprehension. Shakespeare carefully delineates between the seven ages.’¹⁶

To a common reader, Jaques may be a man who wept and waxed philosophic over a suffering deer and who is interested in listening a jazzing song from Amiens to overcome his melancholy, but to a reader with a richer secondary imagination and keen insight, he is much more than it. It is true that he is willing to meet a fool in the forest; he himself wishes to be a fool, but he is only a sad, wise, and silent man.

The truth of Jaques is that he is a widely informally learned man with a perfect knowledge of human life and of its various stages and their features. His pessimistic view of human life is well explained in his theory of the seven ages of man. However, we find him hanging with Orlando. Jaques is hanging with Orlando, who has just spent all this time writing poetry about Rosalind for the trees. He is mean but funny in dealing with Orlando; neither of them likes each other and neither pretends otherwise.

Keeping aside all the confusing arguments about Jaques, his negativity, melancholy etc., it should be concluded that Jaques, though a minor character from the plot-construction of view, is a major character who is capable of making a lasting impression through his approach to life. His Seven Ages Speech which is in the form of poem, uttered by him in Act-II, Scene-7 is an immortal monologue in the entire range of English drama and poetry. He and his seven age speech poem remains unforgettable even to this day.

Jaques as a Spokesperson of Shakespeare

Dipak Kumar Sarkar¹⁵ supports the idea that Jaques is the spokesperson of William Shakespeare because what he says in his Seven Age Speech poem are the words of Shakespeare himself. Jaques ‘has been portrayed by Shakespeare in the way to give and to share what Shakespeare has experienced and thinks of the world around even of the aged people’.

In a study of Shakespeare's melancholics, W. I. D. Scott comments that this ‘lends support to the conception of Jaques as a commentating mouthpiece with views on life at the pessimistic extreme of Shakespeare's own, balanced by the optimism of the other commentator, Touchstone’.¹⁷

However, on the contrary, Prof. O.J. Campbell¹⁸ is not ready to accept Jaques as a spokesperson of William Shakespeare. He discards the idea of Jaques’ being the representative and voice of Shakespeare. He considers Jaques ‘a malcontent traveller anatomized according to the approved psychology of Shakespeare’s day.’ 

As far as I am concerned, I find Jaques in the play As You Like It as much representative of William Shakespeare as Prospero is in The Tempest. It is through Jaques that Shakespeare serves his views on human life, seven stages or seven ages of man and their specific feature. Moreover, the dialogues assigned to the characters are written by the playwrights and they have the stamp of the writers.

References

1.     Mehmet Akif Balkaya. Shakespeare’s Pastoral-Comedy As You Like It, The Criterion: An International Journal in English, Volume-6, Issue-VI, 2015

2.     Tolman Albert H. Shakespeare's Manipulation of His Sources in As You Like It, Modern Language Notes, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Feb., 1922), pp. 65-76

3.     Daley A. Stuart. The Dispraise of the Country In "As You Like It", JSTOR, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 300-314 (15 pages), Published By: Oxford University Press

4.     Wolk Anthony. The Extra Jaques in As You Like It, JSTOR, Shakespeare Quarterly

Vol. 23, No. 1 (Winter, 1972), pp. 101-105 (5 pages), Published By: Oxford University Press

5.     Marshall Cynthia. The Doubled Jaques and Constructions of Negation in As You Like It, JSTOR, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 375-392 (18 pages), Published By: Oxford University Press

6.     Pal Dipanwita. Forest of Arden Revisited: Re-assessing the Role of Jaques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It from an Ecocritical Perspective, RAIS Journal for Social Sciences | Vol. 4, No. 2, 2020

7.     William Shakespeare. As You Like It, Act-II, Scene- VII

8.     Paul Christopher. This strange eventful history: Oxford, Shakespeare, and the Seven Ages of Man, Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter, Vol. 38, Issue 3, 2002

9.     Dr. Tearle Oliver. A Short Analysis of Jaques’ ‘All the world’s a stage / seven ages of man’ Speech,  Loughborough University

10.   Puri Shaifali Rachna. “The Seven Ages of Man” by William Shakespeare: An opinion oriented perspective, ResearchGate, September, 2016

11.   Devi Dr. Uma and Suhasini Latha. The Writings of Shakespeare in the Contemporary Indian Scenario-The Seven Ages of Man, Journal of Research Scholars and Professionals of English Language Teaching, Issue 3, Vol. 1, 2017

12.   De Ardhendu. Seven Ages Of Man --from "AS YOU LIKE IT" by William Shakespeare, May 21, 2011

13.   Fowler Alastair. Pastoral Instruction in ‘As You Like It’, Pages 44–55, July 2021

14.   Kronenfeld Judy Z. Shakespeare's Jaques and the Pastoral Cult of Solitude, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 18, No. 3, An Issue Devoted to the English Renaissance (FALL 1976), pp. 451-473, Published By: University of Texas Press

15.   Sarkar Dipak Kumar. Age in the Eye of Shakespeare, focus on; As You Like It, International Journal of Comparative Literature & Translation Studies, Volume: 8 Issue: 2, 2020

16.   Murray Lynsey McCullochBev & Calland Clari SearleRuth.  The Seven Ages of Man, A Series of Drawings by Jonathan Walter, 2016

17.   Scott, W.I.DShakespeare's Melancholics. London: Mills & Boon, 1962

18.   Bennett Josephine W. Jaques Seven Ages, The Shakespeare Association Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. 4 (October, 1943), pp. 168-174,  Published By: Oxford University Press