Poem fractal

Heraclitus

by William Johnson Cory

9 January 1823 to 11 June 1892 (~69)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Above all, you go to a great school for self-knowledge.”

Making self-understanding the highest purpose of education · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861

More remarks (5)

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 · −0.0061 + 0.6363i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  2. John Gay · −0.0087 + 0.6511i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  3. Richard · 0.0323 + 0.6601i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  4. Lizette Woodworth Reese · 0.0255 + 0.6145i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Butler Yeats · 0.0481 + 0.6291i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
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