Poem fractal

The Complaints of the Poor

by Robert Southey

12 August 1774 to 21 March 1843 (~69)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“In like manner I make the most of my enjoyments, and, though I do not cast my cares away, I pack them in as little compass as I can, carry them as conveniently as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.”

Describing a practical philosophy of enjoying life while containing one’s burdens · Letter, 1829

More remarks (35)

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. Arthur Hugh Clough · −0.3388 − 0.7914i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  2. Isobel Pagan · −0.3370 − 0.8001i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  3. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.3101 − 0.7918i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  4. Edna Wahlert McCourt · −0.3180 − 0.7762i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  5. Jessie Pope · −0.3536 − 0.7807i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
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