Poem fractal

The Church-Floore

by George Herbert

3 April 1593 to 1 March 1633 (~40)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The eyes have one language everywhere.”

Emphasising the universal expressive power of human feeling · Jacula Prudentum (prose aphorisms)

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. James Stephens · −0.2100 − 0.3384i · 0.003 away · Compare side by side
  2. Arthur Hugh Clough · −0.2022 − 0.3428i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  3. William Wordsworth · −0.2008 − 0.3342i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  4. Paul Laurence Dunbar · −0.2060 − 0.3484i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  5. Charles Mackay · −0.2146 − 0.3473i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
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