Poem fractal

The wretch condemn'd with life to part

by Oliver Goldsmith

c. 10 November 1728 to 4 April 1774 (~46)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Life is a journey that must be travelled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.”

A wry acknowledgement that endurance matters more than comfortable circumstances · Prose work, commonly attributed to The Citizen of the World

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. Alfred Lord Tennyson · −0.9967 − 0.5681i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
  2. Walter J. Turner · −0.9242 − 0.5437i · 0.067 away · Compare side by side
  3. Thomas Hardy · −0.9025 − 0.5566i · 0.078 away · Compare side by side
  4. Elizabeth Devereux · −1.0455 − 0.6477i · 0.093 away · Compare side by side
  5. Patrick Reginald Chalmers · −1.0532 − 0.6533i · 0.102 away · Compare side by side
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