Shakespeare’s Grandiose Old Men

Abstract

In the same scene, the melancholic Jacques had just reported the profound declaration of Touchstone, one of Shakespeare’s wise fools: “And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, / And then from hour to hour we rot and rot.” (Act II, Scene vii, 63-64, p. 264) Undoubtedly, there are several equally gloomy and disconsolate quotes about old age in other Shakespeare’s plays; and in his sonnets he dedicates numerous verses to the anguish of the passing of time, the impassive time that carves deep marks of ruination on man’s body and face. Frequently, time is described as the never resting