Poem fractal

Psalm 1

by King James Bible

1611 to present

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Variety of translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures.”

Presenting different renderings as a resource for understanding · Preface, The Translators to the Reader (1611)

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. Samuel Taylor Coleridge · −0.3966 + 0.1249i · 0.003 away · Compare side by side
  2. Hartley Coleridge · −0.3855 + 0.1235i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  3. Matthew Arnold · −0.3831 + 0.1354i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  4. Ada Cambridge · −0.4114 + 0.1394i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  5. Hart Crane · −0.4126 + 0.1570i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
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