Poem fractal

The Bells of Shandon

by Francis Sylvester Mahony

31 December 1805 to 18 May 1866 (~61)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I am an Irish potato seasoned with Attic salt.”

Wry self-portrait blending Irish roots with classical learning and wit · Self-description (as Father Prout)

More remarks (1)

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. Edgar A. Guest · −0.5710 − 0.4633i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton · −0.5800 − 0.4668i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.5505 − 0.5089i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
  4. Sara Teasdale · −0.5561 − 0.5126i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
  5. Christina Rossetti · −0.5283 − 0.4622i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
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