Poem fractal

The Exchange

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

21 October 1772 to 25 July 1834 (~62)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is.”

Observing the thin line between the ridiculous and the tragic · Table Talk, 20 August 1833

More remarks (70)

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. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 0.4783 − 0.6398i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  2. Lewis Carroll · 0.4408 − 0.6427i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  3. James Joyce · 0.4858 − 0.6479i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  4. Thomas Weelkes · 0.5003 − 0.6382i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
  5. Paul Laurence Dunbar · 0.5030 − 0.6431i · 0.044 away · Compare side by side
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