Poem fractal

Proud Maisie

by Sir Walter Scott

15 August 1771 to 21 September 1832 (~61)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I always laugh when I hear people say, Do one thing at once. I have done a dozen things at once all my life.”

Describing his lifelong habit of working on several things at once · Journal, 7 December 1827

More remarks (17)

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 · −0.3649 − 1.0532i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  2. Mark Van Doren · −0.3897 − 1.0789i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · −0.4273 − 1.0450i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · −0.3876 − 1.0159i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  5. Mina Loy · −0.3843 − 1.0947i · 0.044 away · Compare side by side
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