Poem fractal

Sursum Corda

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

25 May 1803 to 27 April 1882 (~79)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Never was a sincere word utterly lost.”

Affirms that truthful expression has consequences even when they are not immediately visible · Essay, Spiritual Laws (1841)

More remarks (85)

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. Richard · 0.5786 − 0.0741i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
  2. Nora Hopper Chesson · 0.5452 − 0.0591i · 0.063 away · Compare side by side
  3. Leigh Hunt · 0.5637 + 0.0016i · 0.068 away · Compare side by side
  4. Frederic William Moorman · 0.5456 − 0.0004i · 0.079 away · Compare side by side
  5. Arthur Symons · 0.6629 − 0.1085i · 0.081 away · Compare side by side
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