Poem fractal

Snake

by D. H. Lawrence

11 September 1885 to 2 March 1930 (~45)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Art-speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar, but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day.”

Arguing that art may reveal truths its creator cannot consciously state · Critical study, Studies in Classic American Literature

More remarks (51)

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. A. A. Milne · −0.2045 + 0.4755i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  2. Cale Young Rice · −0.2127 + 0.4742i · 0.042 away · Compare side by side
  3. Wilfred Owen · −0.1484 + 0.5116i · 0.043 away · Compare side by side
  4. Richard · −0.1747 + 0.4270i · 0.049 away · Compare side by side
  5. Ronald Ross · −0.1302 + 0.4476i · 0.050 away · Compare side by side
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