Poem fractal

On Tea

by Edmund Waller

3 March 1606 to 21 October 1687 (~81)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Poets, sir, succeed better in fiction than in truth.”

A witty explanation for why his panegyric on Cromwell was judged better than his later praise of the king · Conversation with Charles II, as reported in anecdotal biographies

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. Charles Whitehead · 0.0023 + 0.3402i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  2. Mary Reynolds Aldis · 0.0132 + 0.3530i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  3. Philip Bourke Marston · −0.0333 + 0.3421i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  4. Lord Byron · −0.0316 + 0.3759i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Richard · −0.0426 + 0.3511i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content