Poem fractal

Fair Star of Evening

by William Wordsworth

7 April 1770 to 23 April 1850 (~80)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“These people, in the senseless hurry of their idle lives, do not read books, they merely snatch a glance at them, that they may talk about them.”

Criticising superficial reading performed for social display · Letter to Lady Beaumont, 21 May 1807

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. Anne Whitney · −0.3932 + 0.7300i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  2. Thomas Hardy · −0.3836 + 0.7514i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  3. William Lisle Bowles · −0.4346 + 0.7514i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  4. Joseph Blanco White · −0.3684 + 0.7413i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
  5. Richard · −0.4446 + 0.7502i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content