Poem fractal

A Riddle

by Anna Lætitia Barbauld

20 June 1743 to 9 March 1825 (~82)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The pleasures of imagination are not confined to any particular season of life.”

Suggesting that imaginative pleasure remains available throughout life · Essay on the pleasures of imagination, commonly attributed

More remarks (3)

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. Emily Dickinson · 0.0856 − 0.6450i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · 0.0619 − 0.6587i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  3. Dylan Thomas · 0.0894 − 0.6664i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  4. Arthur Symons · 0.0995 − 0.6430i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Vaughn Moody · 0.0482 − 0.6599i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
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