Poem fractal

Milton!

by William Wordsworth

7 April 1770 to 23 April 1850 (~80)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“It is possible for Poetry to give other enjoyments, of a purer, more lasting, and more exquisite nature.”

Seeking forms of poetic pleasure that deepen rather than merely divert · 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. Alan Seeger · 0.0733 + 0.6331i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Butler Yeats · 0.0481 + 0.6291i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  3. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt · 0.0369 + 0.6104i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  4. Richard Barnefield · 0.0947 + 0.6387i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  5. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 0.0606 + 0.5783i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
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