Poem fractal

Melancholy

by John Fletcher

20 December 1579 to 29 August 1625 (~46)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Understand a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may agree with their natures.”

Defending the importance of plausibility and natural characterisation in pastoral drama · Preface, To the Reader

More remarks (3)

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. Dylan Thomas · −0.1065 − 0.1088i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  2. Arthur Symons · −0.0926 − 0.0956i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  3. Arthur O'Shaughnessy · −0.0911 − 0.1006i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Drinkwater · −0.1131 − 0.1122i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  5. Andrew Marvell · −0.1072 − 0.1158i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
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