Poem fractal

Infant Joy

by William Blake

28 November 1757 to 12 August 1827 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“What is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not worth my care.”

A defence of visionary art against those who demand easy explanation · Letter to the Rev. Dr John Trusler, 23 August 1799

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. Charles Bertram Johnson · 0.8953 − 1.2419i · 0.112 away · Compare side by side
  2. John Boyle O'Reilly · 0.7413 − 1.0788i · 0.119 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · 0.9151 − 1.2775i · 0.149 away · Compare side by side
  4. James Joyce · 0.7221 − 1.0433i · 0.159 away · Compare side by side
  5. Langston Hughes · 0.6533 − 1.2394i · 0.160 away · Compare side by side
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