Puck:Everyone's Favorite Fairy

A detailed Summary of Puck:Everyone's Favorite Fairy

Throughout the William Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night's Dream we meet many characters. Some are funny, some are mean, and some we feel sorry for. However, no character is adored so much as Puck, the agent of the fairy king. Puck is a mischievous little fairy that does King Oberon's dirty work, and finds humor at the expense of others. Audiences and critics love the tiny sprite, and time after time he steals the show. With such classic lines as "Lord, what fools these mortals be", it is impossible to not see why.

Stuart Tave, author of the book Lovers, Clowns, and Fairies, talks extensively of the fairies in Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream and especially about Puck. He refers to the fairy kingdom as the most remarkable characters in the play, with their names both naturally and romantically more than nature. He labels them to be both overwhelming and delicate, and not subject to morality, time, or space. It is Puck who is "swifter than arrow from Tarter's bow, can put a girdle on the earth in 40 minutes". He calls Puck the merry wander of the night. Tave also points out that Puck, along with the rest of Shakespeare's fairy kingdom, is invisible to the human's of the play. They can obser

I decided to write about these four criticisms because I agree very much with all of them. I've read A Midsummer Nights Dream twice now, and both times, I adored the character of Puck. I think that these four criticisms told all of the things that I liked, and sometimes disliked about Puck. He is so mischievous that as you read the play, you can't help but sit and wonder what he'll do next. His tricks seem to have no bounds, and that's what I think is so great about his character. I think that the criticism that I enjoyed the most was the one by Stuart Tave. He had a lot of interesting things to say which I had never thought of before. I also liked it because I agree the most with what he has to say, although the other reviews were all very good too. I especially liked how Tave pointed out that Puck is not all bad, that he can do helpful deeds for people when they need to be helped. I agree with that statement, because I too don't feel that Puck is all bad. I'll admit that he does have his moments of wickedness, but I think that most of the time, his heart is in the right place, and as Brigg's also pointed out, doesn't always do bad things on purpose. This is why I feel that so many people, like myself, enjoy his character so much.

In the book, The Elizabethan Fairies, Minor While Latham goes into some great detail about the background of Puck, and where his name originated. He, like Hazlitt, also tells of Puck's two aliases, Robin Goodfellow and Hobgoblin. Latham tells that the term Puck, or Pouke, was a generic term applies to a class of demons or devils, and to the devil himself, whom, before A Midsummer Nights Dream, had never been classified. He also points out that it is Puck himself who

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Approximate Word count = 1153
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English