Poem fractal

Sonnet 17

by Richard Barnefield

29 June 1574 to 1627 (~53)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Small is the gift, but great is my good-will; the which, by how much the lesse I am able to expresse it, by so much the more it is infinite.”

Expressing sincere affection and humility in offering imperfect verse · Dedication to the Earl of Derby, Cynthia (1595)

More remarks (1)

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 · 0.1140 + 0.6397i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  2. Alan Seeger · 0.0733 + 0.6331i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  3. Anne Bradstreet · 0.0708 + 0.6578i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Wordsworth · 0.0694 + 0.6170i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  5. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 0.1275 + 0.6469i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
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