Poem fractal

My Star

by Robert Browning

7 May 1812 to 12 December 1889 (~77)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I believe in you absolutely, utterly.”

A remarkably direct expression of the trust at the centre of their developing relationship · Letter to Elizabeth Barrett, 30 August 1845

More remarks (16)

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. Robert Stephen Hawker · −0.1058 − 0.1626i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  2. Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan · −0.1073 − 0.1627i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  3. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.0948 − 0.1366i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Boyle O'Reilly · −0.0969 − 0.1327i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  5. Sir Walter Raleigh · −0.1193 − 0.1605i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
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