Poem fractal

To the River Duddon

by William Wordsworth

7 April 1770 to 23 April 1850 (~80)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The earliest poets of all nations generally wrote from passion excited by real events; they wrote naturally, and as men.”

Valuing natural expression rooted in genuine experience · 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. Richard · −0.2828 + 0.6554i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  2. Eunice Tietjens · −0.2894 + 0.6573i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  3. D. H. Lawrence · −0.3051 + 0.6456i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Wordsworth · −0.2961 + 0.6607i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Wordsworth · −0.2663 + 0.6549i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
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