Poem fractal

Elena's Song

by Sir Henry Taylor

18 October 1800 to 27 March 1886 (~86)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Good nature and kindness towards those with whom they come in personal contact, at the expense of public interests, that is of those whom they never see, is the besetting sin of public men.”

Warning against private partiality that harms the wider public · The Statesman, chapter 23

More remarks (14)

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. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt · 0.2124 − 0.5447i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. Robert Herrick · 0.2000 − 0.5584i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  3. Dylan Thomas · 0.2078 − 0.5297i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · 0.1925 − 0.5338i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  5. Richard · 0.2204 − 0.5313i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
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