Poem fractal

Eldorado

by Edgar Allan Poe

19 January 1809 to 7 October 1849 (~40)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before any thing be attempted with the pen.”

Advocating deliberate construction before the writing of a story begins · Literary essay, 1846

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. Emily Dickinson · −0.3192 − 1.0234i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  2. T. S. Eliot · −0.2892 − 1.0031i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  3. W. H. Davies · −0.3312 − 1.0361i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
  4. Bliss Carman · −0.2733 − 0.9953i · 0.041 away · Compare side by side
  5. Louise Chandler Moulton · −0.3222 − 0.9578i · 0.044 away · Compare side by side
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