Poem fractal

Alone

by Edgar Allan Poe

19 January 1809 to 7 October 1849 (~40)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”

A frank admission of the alternating extremes of his mental state after personal loss · Letter to George W. Eveleth, 4 January 1848

More remarks (39)

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. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.6437 + 0.5799i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  2. Wilfrid Wilson Gibson · −0.6992 + 0.5483i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
  3. Dylan Thomas · −0.6322 + 0.6286i · 0.056 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Keats · −0.6034 + 0.5226i · 0.080 away · Compare side by side
  5. John Keats · −0.5796 + 0.5943i · 0.081 away · Compare side by side
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