Poem fractal

The Grasshopper

by Abraham Cowley

1618 to 28 July 1667 (~49)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Ambition is at the bottom of all great actions, though it often leads to ruin.”

Acknowledging ambition as both a powerful motivator and a double-edged sword · Prose essay, Of Ambition

More remarks (30)

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. W. H. Davies · −0.2892 + 1.4534i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
  2. Rudyard Kipling · −0.1873 + 1.4350i · 0.077 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edgar A. Guest · −0.2246 + 1.3680i · 0.082 away · Compare side by side
  4. Banjo Paterson · −0.2296 + 1.3636i · 0.084 away · Compare side by side
  5. Alan Seeger · −0.1874 + 1.3684i · 0.105 away · Compare side by side
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