Poem fractal

The Kisse

by Thomas Stanley

3 September 1625 to 12 April 1678 (~53)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I send this book to you, because you first directed me to this design.”

A brief expression of gratitude to the relative whose encouragement helped initiate the project. · Dedication to John Marsham, The History of Philosophy, 1655

More remarks (13)

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. James Clarence Mangan · −0.0666 − 0.4111i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  2. Percy Bysshe Shelley · −0.0726 − 0.4252i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edgar A. Guest · −0.1094 − 0.3973i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Wordsworth · −0.0921 − 0.3808i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  5. W. H. Davies · −0.0595 − 0.3853i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
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