Poem fractal

Quiet Work

by Matthew Arnold

24 December 1822 to 15 April 1888 (~66)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Poetry is at bottom a criticism of life.”

Emphasising poetry’s power to examine human experience and values · The Study of Poetry (essay)

More remarks (4)

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. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.3357 − 0.1109i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  2. Letitia Elizabeth Landon · −0.3326 − 0.1089i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  3. Arthur Hugh Clough · −0.3384 − 0.1345i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.3171 − 0.1122i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  5. Ella Wheeler Wilcox · −0.3096 − 0.1162i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
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