Poem fractal

The Parting-Gate

by Charles Tennyson Turner

4 July 1808 to 25 April 1879 (~71)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Indeed, I prefer this Sonnet to the rest.”

Giving a direct and unembellished judgement on a group of sonnets sent to him · Letter to D. R. Williamson, 5 August 1872

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. Charles Tennyson Turner · −0.4443 + 0.8250i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.4163 + 0.8260i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  3. Alan Seeger · −0.4836 + 0.8335i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  4. Sir Aubrey de Vere · −0.4320 + 0.7852i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
  5. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.4745 + 0.7877i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
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