Poem fractal

The Land o' the Leal

by Lady Nairne

16 August 1766 to 26 October 1845 (~79)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I have been carefully weaned from this world, and do delight to think of the happy land that cannot be far off now.”

Facing mortality with a strong sense of spiritual anticipation · Letter to her Dublin correspondent, 1 May 1844

More remarks (25)

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. Emily Dickinson · 0.0648 − 0.8083i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  2. Anne Bradstreet · 0.0501 − 0.8093i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · 0.0763 − 0.8139i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  4. Richard Lovelace · 0.0468 − 0.8120i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  5. Philip Arthur Larkin · 0.0536 − 0.7947i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
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