Poem fractal

Old Song

by Edward FitzGerald

31 March 1809 to 14 June 1883 (~74)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I am a Pagan, and shall remain a Pagan.”

A candid expression of his religious independence and scepticism · Letter

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. Robert Browning · −0.1489 − 1.2491i · 0.058 away · Compare side by side
  2. Alice Corbin · −0.1528 − 1.2608i · 0.058 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · −0.2520 − 1.1948i · 0.062 away · Compare side by side
  4. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · −0.1929 − 1.2969i · 0.063 away · Compare side by side
  5. Richard · −0.1494 − 1.1997i · 0.066 away · Compare side by side
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