Poem fractal

The Chimney-Sweeper

by William Blake

28 November 1757 to 12 August 1827 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I know that our deceased friends are more really with us than when they were apparent to our mortal part.”

Grief is answered by a presence that outlasts the visible body · Letter to William Hayley, 6 May 1800

More remarks (86)

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 Clarence Mangan · −0.1905 + 0.2106i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  2. James Graham · −0.1919 + 0.2123i · 0.007 away · Compare side by side
  3. William Walsh · −0.1782 + 0.2154i · 0.007 away · Compare side by side
  4. Robert Browning · −0.1999 + 0.2168i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  5. Edgar Allan Poe · −0.2006 + 0.2157i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
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