Poem fractal

The Dying Christian to his Soul

by Alexander Pope

21 May 1688 to 30 May 1744 (~56)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“We are surpriz'd, the moment we weep; and yet upon reflection find the passion so just that we shou'd be surpriz'd if we had not wept.”

Describing the apparent naturalness of powerful dramatic emotion · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

More remarks (35)

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. Lord Byron · −0.1032 − 0.5227i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  2. Stephen Vincent Benét · −0.1064 − 0.5175i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  3. Robert Southey · −0.1266 − 0.5359i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Blake · −0.0973 − 0.5143i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  5. Ernest Hemingway · −0.1105 − 0.5530i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
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