Shakespeare, Midlife, and Generativity is a study of relations between the generations in five of William Shakespeare's plays--King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. The book draws on Erik Erikson's theory of generativity-understood by Erikson as a midlife shift from advancing one's own career to aiding a younger generation-to examine the difficulties Shakespeare's parents (mainly fathers) have in releasing power and authority to their children or to other young people.