Poem fractal

A Dirge

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

5 April 1837 to 10 April 1909 (~72)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Every master of pathos has a key of his own to unlock the source of tears, or of that passionate and piteous pleasure which lies above and under the region of tears.”

Suggesting that each great artist reaches emotion by a distinct path · Essay, Victor Hugo: L'Homme qui Rit

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. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.4767 − 0.5136i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  2. David Melvill · −0.4782 − 0.5080i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  3. George Chapman · −0.4609 − 0.5244i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Stuart Blackie · −0.4682 − 0.5076i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Ernest Henley · −0.4599 − 0.5104i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
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