Poem fractal

Dover Cliffs

by William Lisle Bowles

24 September 1762 to 7 April 1850 (~88)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The objects of artificial life are, per se, less fitted for the purposes of poetry than those of nature, and than the passions of the human heart.”

His summary of why satires of manners stand below nature and passion · Writings in the Pope controversy

More remarks (18)

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. William Lisle Bowles · −0.5412 + 0.8062i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Cullen Bryant · −0.5446 + 0.7896i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. Ralph Waldo Emerson · −0.5170 + 0.7933i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  4. Alfred Austin · −0.5574 + 0.8461i · 0.041 away · Compare side by side
  5. Ralph Waldo Emerson · −0.5911 + 0.7789i · 0.049 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content