Poem fractal

The Great Minimum

by G. K. Chesterton

29 May 1874 to 14 June 1936 (~62)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”

A concise contrast between humility and the burdens of excessive self-importance · Prose book

More remarks (4)

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. Henry David Thoreau · −0.0074 + 0.0891i · 0.003 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Watson · 0.0077 + 0.0818i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edwin Markham · −0.0150 + 0.1096i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  4. A. A. Milne · −0.0370 + 0.0730i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  5. Joaquin Miller · −0.0085 + 0.0547i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
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