ABSTRACT
I wish to address myself in this chapter to the notion of creativity in later life. I do not intend to do more than briefly summarize the classical view of creativity as put forward originally by Sigmund Freud and developed by other psychoanalysts over the past eighty years. I wish instead to bring together several strands of thought arising from consideration of object-relations theory and the application of structuralist ideas to psychoanalytic thinking, together with recent interest in the developmental stages of later life. I will combine this approach with a critique of certain notions put forward by Rene Major in his work on Hamlet and apply the amended theory to an outstanding creative work of later life: William Shakespeare's last complete play The Tempest.
