Poem fractal

Ode 1.11

by Quintus Horatius Flaccus

8 December 65 BC to 27 November 8 BC (~38)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“He has achieved every vote who has combined the useful with the agreeable, delighting the reader while instructing him.”

Original: Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utili dulci, lectorem delectando pariterque monendo. — Highlights the ideal harmony of pleasure and moral purpose in writing. · Ars Poetica (Latin)

More remarks (6)

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. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 1.0136 + 0.5359i · 0.099 away · Compare side by side
  2. Richard · 0.8158 + 0.4993i · 0.103 away · Compare side by side
  3. Siegfried Sassoon · 0.8645 + 0.3838i · 0.135 away · Compare side by side
  4. Giacomo Leopardi · 0.9501 + 0.3433i · 0.167 away · Compare side by side
  5. Edmund William Gosse · 0.8037 + 0.6412i · 0.176 away · Compare side by side
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