Poem fractal

Ubique

by Joshua Sylvester

1563 to 28 September 1618 (~55)

Browse poets 678

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. Richard Tottel · 0.9125 + 0.8261i · 0.184 away · Compare side by side
  2. Publius Ovidius Naso · 1.1637 + 0.5355i · 0.263 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 1.0136 + 0.5359i · 0.265 away · Compare side by side
  4. Edmund William Gosse · 0.8037 + 0.6412i · 0.324 away · Compare side by side
  5. Quintus Horatius Flaccus · 0.9186 + 0.5073i · 0.331 away · Compare side by side
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