Poem fractal

The Conqueror Worm

by Edgar Allan Poe

19 January 1809 to 7 October 1849 (~40)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“He that is born to be a man, neither should nor can be anything nobler, greater, or better than a man. The fact is, that in efforts to soar above our nature, we invariably fall below it.”

Warning against attempts to transcend ordinary human nature · Marginalia

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. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.4993 − 0.3767i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  2. Alfred Austin · −0.5327 − 0.3653i · 0.037 away · Compare side by side
  3. Banjo Paterson · −0.4895 − 0.4156i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Wordsworth · −0.4948 − 0.4249i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
  5. Dylan Thomas · −0.5603 − 0.4224i · 0.041 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content