Puck in popular culture (a modern retelling of the Scottish faerie ballad), the character of Robin Armin is implied to be Puck; he used a similar name while performing as a singer and actor for The King's Men, and had been the inspiration for the Shakespearean Puck and several other comic characters, but he and the others of his troupe were unsuccessful in luring the Bard off to the Fair Lands. In Mercedes Lackey's novel "The Wizard of London" Robin Goodfellow/Puck steps in to play himself in a boarding school's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" when no one suitable can be found for
A Midsummer Night's Dream pairing. It seems that a desire to lose one's individuality and find identity in the love of another is what quietly moves the events of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". As the primary sense of motivation, this desire is reflected even in the scenery depictions and the story's overall mood. In his essay "Preposterous Pleasures: Queer Theories and "A Midsummer Night's Dream"," Douglas E. Green explores possible interpretations of alternative sexuality that he finds within the text of the play, in juxtaposition to the proscribed social mores of the culture at the time the play was written. He writes that his