Poem fractal

Ode II.11

by Quintus Horatius Flaccus

8 December 65 BC to 27 November 8 BC (~38)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Even the great Homer sometimes nods.”

Original: Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. — A gentle observation that even supreme masters make minor slips. · Ars Poetica (Latin)

More remarks (6)

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. Emily Dickinson · 0.6582 − 0.8544i · 0.043 away · Compare side by side
  2. Arthur Symons · 0.6484 − 0.7773i · 0.068 away · Compare side by side
  3. Mina Loy · 0.7405 − 0.7711i · 0.075 away · Compare side by side
  4. Georgia Douglas Johnson · 0.6425 − 0.8845i · 0.075 away · Compare side by side
  5. Langston Hughes · 0.6582 − 0.9204i · 0.098 away · Compare side by side
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