Poem fractal

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

by William Wordsworth

7 April 1770 to 23 April 1850 (~80)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Poems, however humble in their kind, if they be good in that kind, cannot read themselves.”

Emphasising the active role of the reader or reciter in bringing poetry alive · Essay, Of Poetry as Observation and Description, 1815

More remarks (44)

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. Herman Melville · 0.1036 − 0.8310i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · 0.1109 − 0.8284i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · 0.0763 − 0.8139i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  4. Lewis Carroll · 0.1201 − 0.8170i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
  5. Thomas d'Urfey · 0.0912 − 0.7967i · 0.023 away · Compare side by side
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