Rumpelstiltskin

N.B: THIS IS VERY LONG AND VERY DETAILED. NOT REALLY WORTH READING, TO BE HONEST!

In The Rumpelstiltskin Problem, Vivian Vande Velde retells the original story in six different ways. This inspired me to create a new ending for this Fairy Tale. The form of ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ is similar to the humorous Fairy Tales written by Roald Dahl in Rhyme Stew. I attempted to edge the poem towards a more formal fabliau feel, and this is the reason why the poem is in one long stanza. The single stanza also helps to keep the poem running smooth, as breaks can distort the storyline. This procedure is not followed for the three couplets where Rumpelstiltskin is trying to guess the baby’s name, to add emphasis to what he’s doing. I learnt this technique from Dahl’s version of Goldilocks, where her crimes are recounted separately from any main body of text.
The rhyming scheme is in couplets throughout, in order to quicken the pace of the piece. It is also in couplets because Dahl’s Rhyme Stew was (as well as Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale, which influenced ‘Rumpelstiltskin’s’ feel of fabliau).
However, the last two couplets form a quadruple rhyme. This difference affirms the message and the joke at the end. I found this particularly difficult as there are not enough words that rhyme with ‘Grimm’. As a consequence, I had to use the word ‘dim’ again, which is already used in a rhyming couplet once before this ending.
Correct punctuation helped to put the couplets in order. I attempted to cut down on the use of question and exclamation marks. They are a valuable tool, but one that can be exploited easily. Originally, the lines “Rumpelstilskin is his name/ You’ve no one but yourself to blame” ended in an exclamation mark. On revision, I decided they should be used only in dialogue as directional tools, instead of as camouflage for weaker parts of writing, so they have been left out of many parts. Brackets are used for throwaway jokes, which have nothing to do with furthering the plot, but are a good aside. I decided to include them so upon reading, it is clear that they are not important. I especially liked the lines, (Although he did, I must report/ Enter on a fake passport). They give the poem a more contemporary feel, away from the traditional Fairy Tale genre.
The metre was very important in this piece. It is written in iambic tetrameter in order to give it a fast pace, which in turn, makes the poem more humorous. Free verse would have been unsuitable for a piece of this size as there would have been a loss of immediate humour. I believe that in order for a poet to write outside of metre, the poet must first have mastered writing within metre, which I have yet to accomplish.
Occasionally, some lines fall out of iambic tetrameter and into trochaic tetrameter. At first, I revised these ‘slips’ so that the text was rigid in its metre form. Upon re-reading Dahl’s Rhyme Stew, however, I decided to change them back. His verse regularly slips between an iambic and trochaic foot and for good reason. The reader would become bored and could easily slip into a trance of following beats instead of following the plot. Through being less strict I was better able to make use of rhyme: “Rumpy came out of his corner/ Saw the girl and did adore her”, which are directly after a sentence, give better variety to the poem.
However, the restrictive patterning of the metre did create a few problems. Some lines didn’t ‘fit’, as in, there was too much information trying to be fitted into a couplet. Lots of parts had to be changed, or made longer, in order to sound correct. “‘I can’t do that’, the young girl thought/
‘Unless I drink the King’s good port’” originally read, “The Miller’s girl was feeling queasy/ (Wine and Champers makes her easy)”. I tried to fit in that she was feeling physically sick at the thought of bedding Rumpelstiltskin, that she needed to be drunk to bed him, and that alcohol made her lose particular morals, in a single couplet. On revision, I decided that this couplet was terrible. They were replaced with the couplet on the King’s port. I still do not think the problem is satisfactorily solved, but I think it is impossible to get these lines exact in a restricted couplet.
This also stopped some lines from rhyming as they should have. “Rumpy came out of his corner/ Saw the girl and did adore her” is not a full rhyme, but a vowel rhyme. This compromise was hit upon as no other substitute would fit. As it is the only one of its sort in the piece, I feel its presence does not upset the balance of the poem. Dahl himself made use of this technique in ‘Cinderella’:

“’There is a disco at the Palace!
“’The rest have gone and I am jalous!”

In other places, the metre problem was solved with enjambement. Where too much information was trying to be fit into one line, the sentence could be run over into the next line with a line break: ‘The King, on seeing this great sight/ Said “Brill! I’m rich! We’ll get hitched soon’.
The only major problem with words was with Rumpelstiltskin’s name, which is limited in its rhyming capabilities. A number of colloquial words had to be used in place of his full name to make sure that the rhyme did not seem forced, thus “Rumpy”, “Little Sir”, and “Man with ginger hair” were used instead. This does not affect the story in any way, as in the original story, his name is only mentioned twice.