Poem fractal

The Parting

by Anne Brontë

17 January 1820 to 28 May 1849 (~29)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“To impart truth, however, is the aim of every good writer.”

Defining truthful representation as the central responsibility of authorship · Preface to Agnes Grey

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. James Shirley · −0.2434 − 0.2516i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  2. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.2476 − 0.2280i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. Wallace Stevens · −0.2308 − 0.2551i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  4. Alfred Lord Tennyson · −0.2522 − 0.2501i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  5. Francis Ledwidge · −0.2276 − 0.2146i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
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