Poem fractal

I heed not that my earthly lot

by Edgar Allan Poe

19 January 1809 to 7 October 1849 (~40)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect.”

Expressing his belief that a work should be designed around its intended emotional impact · 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. Robert Burns · 0.3690 − 0.5820i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  2. Amelia Alderson Opie · 0.3533 − 0.6102i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  3. James Joyce · 0.3113 − 0.5603i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  4. Sara Teasdale · 0.3166 − 0.6189i · 0.043 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Dickinson · 0.3692 − 0.6155i · 0.046 away · Compare side by side
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