Poem fractal

The Three Hermits

by William Butler Yeats

13 June 1865 to 28 January 1939 (~74)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“What are we going to do to restore the primitive singing of poetry?”

Reflecting Yeats's concern with recovering poetry's ancient connection with voice, rhythm and song · Conversation with Vachel Lindsay, Chicago

More remarks (81)

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. John Keats · −0.1680 + 1.2571i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  2. Thomas Hardy · −0.1817 + 1.3202i · 0.056 away · Compare side by side
  3. Mary Lamb · −0.1479 + 1.2958i · 0.061 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Masefield · −0.2543 + 1.2281i · 0.065 away · Compare side by side
  5. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.1375 + 1.2860i · 0.067 away · Compare side by side
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