Poem fractal

Louisa

by William Wordsworth

7 April 1770 to 23 April 1850 (~80)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The Poet writes under one restriction only, namely, that of the necessity of giving immediate pleasure.”

insisting pleasure remains poetry's first duty, whatever else it achieves · Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1802

More remarks (44)

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. Thomas Moore · −0.1917 − 0.4942i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Whiting · −0.1783 − 0.4855i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  3. Algernon Charles Swinburne · −0.1912 − 0.4734i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  4. E. Nesbit · −0.1789 − 0.4746i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  5. Allan Cunningham · −0.1925 − 0.4700i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
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