Poem fractal

The Open Window

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

27 February 1807 to 24 March 1882 (~75)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.”

Recognising that completion requires a distinct form of discipline and judgement · Journal or prose remark, as commonly attributed

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. Thomas Hardy · −0.3487 − 0.8535i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  2. Katharine Lee Bates · −0.3489 − 0.8718i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  3. May
    Edward Hovell-Thurlow · −0.3348 − 0.8766i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · −0.3821 − 0.8485i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Dickinson · −0.3560 − 0.8194i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
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