Poem fractal

A Dream

by William Blake

28 November 1757 to 12 August 1827 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I live in a hole here, but God has a beautiful mansion for me elsewhere.”

Poverty of rooms is set against amplitude of vision · Conversation recorded by Henry Crabb Robinson

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. A.E.Housman · −0.1040 − 0.8592i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · −0.1081 − 0.8372i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  3. Stephen Phillips · −0.0899 − 0.8262i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · −0.0911 − 0.8257i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
  5. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.0491 − 0.8453i · 0.046 away · Compare side by side
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