Poem fractal

On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia

by Sir Henry Wotton

30 March 1568 to December 1639 (~71)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.”

A witty definition of diplomacy that plays on the double meaning of lie. · Letter to Christopher Fleckmore, 1604

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. John Bartlet · 0.3809 − 0.5068i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  2. Richard · 0.3567 − 0.4415i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
  3. Sir George Etherege · 0.3279 − 0.4472i · 0.044 away · Compare side by side
  4. James Joyce · 0.3959 − 0.5033i · 0.046 away · Compare side by side
  5. Charles Sackville · 0.3354 − 0.5333i · 0.057 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content