Poem fractal

Go, Lovely Rose

by Edmund Waller

3 March 1606 to 21 October 1687 (~81)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Poets, sir, succeed better in fiction than in truth.”

A witty explanation for why his panegyric on Cromwell was judged better than his later praise of the king · Conversation with Charles II, as reported in anecdotal biographies

More remarks (1)

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. Philip Arthur Larkin · −0.4035 − 0.7125i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · −0.4022 − 0.7228i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  3. John Vance Cheney · −0.4147 − 0.7290i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  4. Emily Dickinson · −0.4131 − 0.6989i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  5. Christina Rossetti · −0.3837 − 0.6978i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
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