Poem fractal

William Tell

by William Cullen Bryant

3 November 1794 to 12 June 1878 (~84)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The current of destiny carries us along. None but a madman would swim against the stream, and none but a fool would exert himself to swim with it. The best way is to float quietly with the tide.”

On accepting the course of events with equanimity · As commonly attributed

More remarks (68)

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 · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Lisle Bowles · −0.5505 + 0.8059i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. Ralph Waldo Emerson · −0.5170 + 0.7933i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  4. Percy Bysshe Shelley · −0.5357 + 0.7566i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
  5. Carl Sandburg · −0.5170 + 0.7635i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
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