Puck (A Midsummer Night's Dream)



Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Based on the Puck of English mythology and the púca of Celtic mythology, Puck is a mischievous fairy, sprite, or jester. He is the first of the main fairy characters to appear, and he significantly influences events in the play. He delights in pranks such as replacing Nick Bottom's head with that of an ass.

Appearances in the play


The audience is introduced to Puck in 2.1:

FAIRY: Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are you not he That frights the maidens of the villagery; Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;⁠ And sometime make the drink to bear no barm; Mislead night wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they shall have good luck:⁠ Are you not he?

PUCK: ⁠Fairy, thou speak'st aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon, and make him smile⁠ When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile Neighing in likeness of a filly foal; And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab;⁠ And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale. The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;⁠ Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh; And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear⁠ A merrier hour was never wasted there [2.1.32-57]. Puck serves the fairy king Oberon. Oberon is angry with Titania, the fairy queen, because she will not let him have a particular "little changeling boy" (2.1.120). Oberon sends Puck to fetch a particular flower, whereof the juice "on sleeping eyelids laid / Will make or man or woman madly dote / Upon the next live creature that it sees" (2.1.170-72). Puck is told to apply some of it to the "disdainful youth" (2.1.261) in "Athenian garments" (2.1.264), but Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius and applies it to Lysander. Oberon applies some of the juice to Titania, and Titania is waked by a singing Nick Bottom, whose head Puck has changed to that of an ass. Later, Puck is ordered to rectify his mistake with Lysander and Demetrius, and he creates a black fog through which he separates the "testy rivals" (3.2.358), imitating their voices until they are asleep. Puck has the final lines of the play: If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended. That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear.⁠ And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will mend.⁠ And, as I'm an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long;⁠ Else the Puck a liar call: So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends [5.1.433-48].

Name of character
The original texts of Shakespeare's plays do not have cast-lists, and are not always consistent with characters' names. Puck's case is particularly awkward. Both the Quarto and the First Folio call the character "Robin Goodfellow" on the first entrance, but "Puck" later in the same scene, and they remain inconsistent. The Arden Shakespeare calls the character "Puck", and emends all stage directions (but not actual dialogue) that refer to the character as "Robin" or "Robin Goodfellow".

Film and TV

 * Mickey Rooney, in the Oscar-winning 1935 film.
 * Ian Holm, in the 1968 film.
 * Phil Daniels, in the 1981 BBC Shakespeare television production.
 * Razzak Khan, in the 1988 West End production.
 * Robert Sean Leonard plays Puck in a high-school production in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society.
 * Brent Spiner plays a version of Puck in Disney's Gargoyles, first appearing in the season two episode "The Mirror" in 1995.
 * Stanley Tucci, in the 1999 film.
 * Tanner Cohen, in a high-school production depicted in the 2008 film Were the World Mine.
 * Hiran Abeysekera in the 2016 film.
 * Avan Jogia, in the 2017 film.
 * Ken Nwosu, in Upstart Crow in 2018.
 * Jonathan Whitesell plays a version of Robin Goodfellow in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina in 2020.

Theatre

 * Gertrud Eysoldt, first on 10 April, 1893 at the Riga City Theater, and later in Max Reinhardt's 1905 production in Berlin.
 * Frederick Peisley in Donald Wolfit's production in 1947.
 * Adam Darius, with the Stora Teatern in Göteborg, Sweden in 1961.
 * John Kane, with The Royal Shakespeare Company in 1970.
 * Puck is renamed "Dr. Wheelgood" in Diane Paulus's production The Donkey Show in 1999.
 * Karenssa LeGear in Schoenberg Hall's 2007 production.
 * Matthew Tennyson, with Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 2013.
 * Kathryn Hunter in Julie Taymor's 2013 production for the Theatre for a New Audience.

School productions

 * Laurence Olivier, with St Edward's School, Oxford in 1923.
 * Sebastian de Souza, with St Edward's School, Oxford.

Painting and sculpture

 * Puck (1789), a painting by Joshua Reynolds
 * Puck (c. 1810–1820), a painting by Henry Fuseli.
 * Puck (c. 1855–1856), a marble sculpture by Harriet Hosmer
 * The Puck Building built in 1885–1888 in Nolita, New York City, features two naked statues of Puck by sculptor Henry Baerer. The building is named after and housed the 19th-century humor magazine Puck. The magazine was named after the character, and used a depiction and a quote of him as a logotype.
 * Sculpture Puck, by Carl Andersson, bronze, 1912, in the Stockholm suburb of Midsommarkransen in Sweden.
 * Puck by Brenda Putnam, marble, 1932, at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

Music

 * French pianist and composer Claude Debussy dedicated a prelude to Puck,  La danse de Puck.

Literature

 * In Neil Gaiman's comic-book The Sandman story "'A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1990), Puck and other fairies watch Shakespeare's company of actors perform A Midsummer Night's Dream. After the play, Puck decides to remain in the "mortal" world, and goes on to appear in later stories.