Poem fractal

Ode on Solitude

by Alexander Pope

21 May 1688 to 30 May 1744 (~56)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“To judge of Shakespeare by Aristotle's rules is like trying a man by the laws of one country, who was born in another.”

Arguing that art should be judged according to its own tradition and circumstances · Preface to Shakespeare

More remarks (35)

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. Bliss Carman · −0.1498 − 0.5494i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Blake · −0.1776 − 0.5715i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  3. William Wordsworth · −0.1499 − 0.5446i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  4. Alice Cary · −0.1365 − 0.5595i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  5. Thomas Hood · −0.1752 − 0.5801i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
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