Poem fractal

A Se Stesso

by Giacomo Leopardi

29 June 1798 to 14 June 1837 (~39)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The only remedy for the evils of life is death.”

A stark expression of his philosophical pessimism about the human condition · Zibaldone

More remarks (22)

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. Siegfried Sassoon · 0.8645 + 0.3838i · 0.095 away · Compare side by side
  2. Dante Alighieri · 0.8855 + 0.2266i · 0.133 away · Compare side by side
  3. D. H. Lawrence · 0.9537 + 0.1902i · 0.153 away · Compare side by side
  4. Quintus Horatius Flaccus · 0.9186 + 0.5073i · 0.167 away · Compare side by side
  5. Hildegard of Bingen · 1.0457 + 0.1657i · 0.202 away · Compare side by side
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