Poem fractal

With how sad steps, O Moon thou climb'st the sky

by William Wordsworth

7 April 1770 to 23 April 1850 (~80)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“My main endeavour as to style has been that my poems should be written in pure intelligible English.”

Stating his commitment to clarity and natural English expression · Conversation, recorded by Christopher Wordsworth

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. Charles Tennyson Turner · −0.4443 + 0.8250i · 0.042 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.4163 + 0.8260i · 0.045 away · Compare side by side
  3. Charles Tennyson Turner · −0.4510 + 0.8196i · 0.049 away · Compare side by side
  4. D. H. Lawrence · −0.3955 + 0.8300i · 0.055 away · Compare side by side
  5. Alan Seeger · −0.4836 + 0.8335i · 0.057 away · Compare side by side
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