Poem fractal

Pray, Think, and Strive!

by Charles Tennyson Turner

4 July 1808 to 25 April 1879 (~71)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I do not accuse Buchanan of this, but, whether he himself is aware of it or not, it (his very sweet little poem) is somewhat too suggestive.”

Qualifying a literary criticism with care rather than condemning the poet outright · 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 · −0.4510 + 0.8196i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.4163 + 0.8260i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  3. Alan Seeger · −0.4836 + 0.8335i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
  4. Sir Aubrey de Vere · −0.4320 + 0.7852i · 0.042 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Wordsworth · −0.4367 + 0.8663i · 0.042 away · Compare side by side
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