Poem fractal

The Rider of the Wind

by Lord Byron

22 January 1788 to 19 April 1824 (~36)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I have a horror of debt, because I have observed that a man who does contract it becomes a rascal.”

A candid, self-aware note on money and moral drift · Journal (Detached Thoughts, 1821)

More remarks (7)

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. Edna St. Vincent Millay · −0.3337 − 0.5436i · 0.007 away · Compare side by side
  2. W. H. Davies · −0.3300 − 0.5205i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  3. Matthew Arnold · −0.3273 − 0.5211i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  4. E. E. Cummings · −0.3279 − 0.5207i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  5. Christina Rossetti · −0.3095 − 0.5412i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content