Poem fractal

The Cypress

by Arthur O'Shaughnessy

14 March 1844 to 30 January 1881 (~37)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“An art in which I have as yet failed to perceive either morality or immorality.”

Separating the formal beauty of sculpture from conventional moral judgement · Written statement on sculpture quoted in the preface to Songs of a Worker (1881)

More remarks (15)

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. Arthur Symons · −0.0926 − 0.0956i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  2. John Fletcher · −0.1025 − 0.0995i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  3. Dylan Thomas · −0.1065 − 0.1088i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  4. Andrew Marvell · −0.1072 − 0.1158i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  5. Dylan Thomas · −0.1004 − 0.1212i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
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