Poem fractal

A Child To His Sick Grandfather

by Joanna Baillie

11 September 1762 to 23 February 1851 (~89)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I have wished to leave behind me in the world a few plays, some of which might have a chance of continuing to be acted even in our canvas theatres and barns.”

She hoped even humble playhouses might keep her work alive in performance · Prefatory address, as commonly cited from her defence of stage plays

More remarks (20)

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. A. A. Milne · 0.4752 − 0.3944i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  2. Thomas Carew · 0.5182 − 0.4131i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
  3. Richard · 0.5167 − 0.4186i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Hughes Mearns · 0.4674 − 0.3852i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  5. Nora Hopper Chesson · 0.4660 − 0.3632i · 0.045 away · Compare side by side
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