Poem fractal

Misconceptions

by Robert Browning

7 May 1812 to 12 December 1889 (~77)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“One of these days I shall describe a country I have seen in my soul only, fruits, flowers, birds and all.”

Asserting the imagination's ability to create landscapes independent of direct experience · Letter to Elizabeth Barrett, 16 April 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. William Wordsworth · −0.1676 − 0.0810i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  2. Christina Rossetti · −0.1860 − 0.0574i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  3. Violet Fane · −0.1853 − 0.0452i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  4. Hart Crane · −0.1675 − 0.0343i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  5. John Donne · −0.1472 − 0.0366i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content