Poem fractal

The Divine Image

by William Blake

28 November 1757 to 12 August 1827 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.”

Reason is a temporary measure, not a finished cage · There is No Natural Religion, 1788

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. Edward Smyth Jones · 0.1209 − 0.8666i · 0.007 away · Compare side by side
  2. Francis William Bourdillon · 0.1152 − 0.8568i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  3. Barry Cornwall · 0.1112 − 0.8608i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  4. Mary Coleridge · 0.1453 − 0.8698i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Dickinson · 0.1038 − 0.8536i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
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