Poem fractal

Vpon Consideracion of the State of This Lyfe He Wisheth Death

by Richard Tottel

c. 1528 to 2 July 1593 (~65)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“That to have well written in verse, yea and in small parcels, deserveth great praise, the works of divers Latines, Italians, and other, do prove sufficiently.”

Defending short lyric as a form worthy of the same honour given to classical and Italian verse · Preface, The Printer to the Reader, Songes and Sonettes (1557)

More remarks (7)

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. Lascelles Abercrombie · 0.4512 + 0.5693i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Byrd · 0.5259 + 0.5353i · 0.056 away · Compare side by side
  3. Robert Browning · 0.4472 + 0.6083i · 0.077 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Donne · 0.3812 + 0.4967i · 0.097 away · Compare side by side
  5. Thomas MacDonagh · 0.4681 + 0.6430i · 0.109 away · Compare side by side
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