Poem fractal

Some men desire spouses

by Thomas Weelkes

25 October 1576 to November 1623 (~47)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“It were needless to commend the worth of music to a noble and understanding disposition: for in the natures of arts and generous spirits there is a sympathy.”

Asserts a natural affinity between music and noble minds · Dedication to Edward Lord Denny, Ayres or Phantasticke Spirites, 1608

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. Paul Laurence Dunbar · 0.5030 − 0.6431i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  2. James Joyce · 0.4858 − 0.6479i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 0.4783 − 0.6398i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  4. Sara Teasdale · 0.5057 − 0.6701i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  5. Samuel Taylor Coleridge · 0.4636 − 0.6232i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
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