Poem fractal

In the Oratory

by Arthur Symons

28 February 1865 to 22 January 1945 (~80)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I do not wish to assert that the kind of verse which happened to reflect certain moods of mine at a certain period of my life is the best kind of verse in itself.”

A rare moment of self-critical humility about his own early work · Preface, second edition of Silhouettes, 1896

More remarks (31)

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. Mina Loy · 0.1045 − 0.6466i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · 0.0856 − 0.6450i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  3. Thomas Moore · 0.1080 − 0.6285i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  4. Dylan Thomas · 0.0894 − 0.6664i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  5. Anna Lætitia Barbauld · 0.0746 − 0.6488i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
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