Poem fractal

Bridal Song

by George Chapman

c. 1559 to 12 May 1634 (~75)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The profane multitude I hate, and only consecrate my strange poems to those searching spirits whom learning hath made noble, and nobility sacred.”

On writing for a learned elite rather than the common reader · Preface to Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)

More remarks (4)

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. William Ernest Henley · −0.4599 − 0.5104i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  2. James Weldon Johnson · −0.4533 − 0.5079i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  3. Nathaniel Parker Willis · −0.4431 − 0.5201i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Stuart Blackie · −0.4682 − 0.5076i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  5. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.4767 − 0.5136i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
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