Poem fractal

Hope

by Joseph Addison

1 May 1672 to 17 June 1719 (~47)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me.”

Mortality as the solvent of rivalry and display · Essay on Westminster Abbey, The Spectator

More remarks (27)

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. Fenton Johnson · −0.6406 + 0.3659i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  2. Allan Cunningham · −0.6056 + 0.3777i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  3. Tobias George Smollett · −0.6470 + 0.3113i · 0.049 away · Compare side by side
  4. A. A. Milne · −0.5762 + 0.3424i · 0.056 away · Compare side by side
  5. Dylan Thomas · −0.5681 + 0.3586i · 0.062 away · Compare side by side
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