Poem fractal

Twilight

by John Masefield

1 June 1878 to 12 May 1967 (~89)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The sea is a great thing, and the sea is a hard thing.”

Capturing the sea’s grandeur alongside its severity · Prose writing, commonly attributed

More remarks (4)

Drawing the boundary…

Read the poem Another poem

A fractal is a shape that keeps its pattern when you look closer. Coastlines, trees, shells, and weather do this. A poem can be drawn the same way.

The poem’s constant is read from the build of its lines: their length, the size of the stanzas, and the share of vowels. Poems whose constants lie closer together are built more alike. The same poem always draws the same picture. Change the length of a line, the stanza, or the vowel share, and both the number and the picture move.

Primunia is the name for the source of that order: the pattern under the pattern, already there in a tree, a shell, and a verse.

Poems nearby in the constant

A smaller distance means the lines are built more alike.

  1. Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan · −0.2099 + 1.1847i · 0.062 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Butler Yeats · −0.2025 + 1.2680i · 0.065 away · Compare side by side
  3. D. H. Lawrence · −0.3194 + 1.2041i · 0.069 away · Compare side by side
  4. Edward Thomas · −0.3334 + 1.2194i · 0.080 away · Compare side by side
  5. G. K. Chesterton · −0.2821 + 1.3088i · 0.085 away · Compare side by side
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