Although he never mentions Jaques or Shake-
speare, Shenk validates their insight into this con-
dition as ‘‘second childhood and mere oblivion.’’
Brain research has shown ‘‘precise inverse relation-
ships between stages of Alzheimer’s disease and
phases of child development... , the strange
notion of reverse childhood turns out to be the
bestmapwehavetounderstandtheterrainof
Alzheimer’s.’’
He also validates the lives of many who
struggle until the end to maintain dignity in the
face of this despair-inducing disease, and who
remind us, in the optimistic words of Cervantes,
who incidentally died on the same day as Shake-
speare, that ‘‘Until death, all is life.’’
Source:Richard Barbieri, ‘‘The Seven Ages of Man,’’ in
Independent School, Vol. 66, No. 2, Winter 2007, pp. 122–4.
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reform/ (accessed August 3, 2009).Further Reading
Cressy, David,Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Reli-
gion, and the Life Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England,
Oxford University Press, 1999.
Cressy depicts what it was like to live in England
during the sixteenth and early seventeenth cen-
turies. Of particular interest is the discussion of
social and culture change during Shakespeare’s
life and the effect that change had on his work.
Greenblatt, Stephen,Will in the World: How Shakespeare
Became Shakespeare, Norton, 2005.
In this biography of Shakespeare, Greenblatt
draws from historical documents and the poet’s
writings to create a picture of the man and his
work within the Elizabethan historical context.
Kastan, David Scott, ed.,A Companion to Shakespeare,
Blackwell, 1999.
Kastan has assembled twenty-eight scholarly
essays about Shakespeare’s world and his work.
Each essay examines one aspect of the play-
wright’s world. The essays focus on such subjects
as politics, religion, playwriting, censorship,
printing, and the economics of theater life.
Picard, Liza, Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in
Elizabethan London, St. Martin’s Press, 2003.
Historian Liza Picard describes London life when
Shakespeare walked the city’s streets. Buildings
and gardens, the shops and palaces, the theaters
and streets are all described. Picard also includes
details about domestic life, about the city’s water
supply, and about diseases common to Londoners.
Pritchard, R. E., ed.,Shakespeare’s England: Life in
Elizabethan & Jacobean Times, Sutton, 1999.
Pritchard presents a large selection of primary
documents, written during Shakespeare’s time.
These firsthand reports provide a glimpse of
what it was like to live in England at this time.
Pritchard includes excerpts from letters, diaries,Seven Ages of Man