Poem fractal

Laodamia's Lament

by Publius Ovidius Naso

20 March 43 BC to c. 17 (~60)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“It is lawful to learn even from an enemy.”

Original: Fas est et ab hoste doceri. — Advocates an open mind and finding instruction wherever it appears. · Metamorphoses, Book IV (Latin)

More remarks (4)

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 · 0.150 away · Compare side by side
  2. Giacomo Leopardi · 1.1525 + 0.3345i · 0.201 away · Compare side by side
  3. John Wilbye · 1.2283 + 0.2991i · 0.245 away · Compare side by side
  4. Quintus Horatius Flaccus · 0.9186 + 0.5073i · 0.247 away · Compare side by side
  5. Joshua Sylvester · 1.0929 + 0.7883i · 0.263 away · Compare side by side
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