Poem fractal

In Tenebris

by Ford Madox Hueffer

17 December 1873 to 26 June 1939 (~66)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“There are probably—humanity being stable, change the world how it may—there are probably eternal principles for all the arts, but the applications of those principles are eternally changing, or eternally revolving.”

Art combines enduring principles with continually changing forms and practices · The English Novel

More remarks (36)

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. Christina Rossetti · −0.2015 − 0.9772i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Blake · −0.2067 − 0.9677i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edward Thomas · −0.2219 − 0.9837i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  4. Bliss Carman · −0.1998 − 1.0091i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Dickinson · −0.1832 − 0.9536i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content