Poem fractal

The Lady of Shalott

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

6 August 1809 to 6 October 1892 (~83)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“A good woman is a wondrous creature, cleaving to the right and the good in all change; lovely in her youthful comeliness, lovely all her life long in comeliness of heart.”

Praising steadfast goodness and the lasting beauty of character · Letter to Emily Sellwood, 1839

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. G. K. Chesterton · −0.4231 − 0.4449i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  2. John Dowland · −0.4128 − 0.4432i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  3. Arthur O'Shaughnessy · −0.4214 − 0.4368i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  4. Christina Rossetti · −0.4280 − 0.4619i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  5. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.4360 − 0.4488i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
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