Poem fractal

The Sands of Dee

by Charles Kingsley

12 June 1819 to 23 January 1875 (~56)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been cheerful and hopeful men.”

Associating practical success with hopefulness and a resilient spirit · Sermons for the Times

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. Edna St. Vincent Millay · −0.3194 − 0.3986i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  2. Charles Stuart Calverley · −0.3011 − 0.4026i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. John Donne · −0.2965 − 0.3999i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  4. Christina Rossetti · −0.2934 − 0.4023i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Cullen Bryant · −0.3234 − 0.4346i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
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