Poem fractal

Freedom, Our Queen

by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

29 August 1809 to 7 October 1894 (~85)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I remember writing an article for the North American Review many years ago in which the editor claimed his Editorial right to change things to suit himself, and altered just one word — for the worse.”

A humorous but serious defence of an author's control over his wording · Letter, August 19, 1882

More remarks (213)

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. Wilfred Owen · −0.3191 − 0.0268i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  2. Lord Byron · −0.3245 − 0.0265i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. Isaac Watts · −0.2948 − 0.0339i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  4. Thomas Gray · −0.3313 − 0.0190i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  5. Alexander Pope · −0.2773 − 0.0167i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content