Poem fractal

Jerusalem

by William Blake

28 November 1757 to 12 August 1827 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”

The timeless is not hostile to what is made and passing · Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

More remarks (86)

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. George William Russell · −0.2890 − 0.6565i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  2. J.G. Holland · −0.3002 − 0.6966i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  3. Charlotte Brontë · −0.3030 − 0.6560i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Keats · −0.3031 − 0.6974i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  5. John Greenleaf Whittier · −0.3046 − 0.6530i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
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