Poem fractal

By Twilight

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

5 April 1837 to 10 April 1909 (~72)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“And the pure excess of admiration for things indeed admirable, of delight in things indeed delightful, is itself also a delightful and admirable thing when expressed to such purpose by such men.”

Celebrating wholehearted admiration of genuine excellence · Essay, John Ford

More remarks (54)

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. Robert Browning · −0.0333 + 0.3072i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  2. A. A. Milne · −0.0168 + 0.3106i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. Leigh Hunt · −0.0430 + 0.3308i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  4. Thomas d'Urfey · −0.0376 + 0.3345i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  5. Ralph Waldo Emerson · −0.0104 + 0.3089i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content