| The life expectancy in Shakespearean times averaged only
about twenty-five to thirty-five years, but those who survived
the illnesses of infancy and childhood could look forward to
a long life with nearly the same level of confidence as someone
living now. But even so long ago, some faced conflicts in their
middle and later years that remain familiar today. In Shakespeare,
Midlife, and Generativity, Karl F. Zender explores
William Shakespeare's depictions of middle age by examining
the relationships between middle-aged parents—mainly fathers—and
their children in five of his greatest plays. He finds that
the middle-aged characters in King Lear, Macbeth, Antony
and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest—much
like their modern counterparts—experience a fear of aging and
debility.
Representations of middle age occur throughout the Shakespearean
canon, in forms ranging from Jaques' seven ages speech in
As You Like It to the emphasis—almost an obsession—in
many plays on relations between the generations. King Lear,
Zender shows, tries to forestall the approach of old age with
a fantasy of literal rebirth in his relationship with Cordelia.
Macbeth depicts an even more urgent struggle against
midlife decline, while in Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare
portrays two characters in midlife crisis who attempt to redefine
their identities by memorializing their former status and
power, now lost. Drawing on Erik Erikson's theory of generativity—a
midlife shift from advancing one's own career to aiding a
younger generation—Zender explores the difficulties Shakespeare's
characters face as they transfer power and authority to their
children and others in the next generation. Paying careful
attention to the plays' moral and ethical implications, he
demonstrates how Shakespeare's innovative depiction of the
midlife experience focuses on internal psychological understanding
rather than external actions such as ceremony and ritual.
Illuminating and engaging, Shakespeare, Midlife, and
Generativity offers a fresh analysis of several of Shakespeare's
most important plays and explores a profound, centuries-old
perspective on the challenges inherent in middle age.
Karl F. Zender is a professor of English at the University
of California at Davis. He is author of The Crossing of
the Ways: William Faulkner, the South, and the Modern World
and Faulkner and the Politics of Reading. |
