Poem fractal

The Green Linnet

by William Wordsworth

7 April 1770 to 23 April 1850 (~80)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“There is scarcely one of my poems which does not aim to direct the attention to some moral sentiment, or to some general principle, or law of thought.”

Explaining the reflective and moral purpose underlying his poems · Letter to Lady Beaumont, 21 May 1807

More remarks (44)

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. Christina Rossetti · −0.3341 − 0.3316i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  2. Anna Lætitia Barbauld · −0.3386 − 0.3252i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  3. A. A. Milne · −0.3125 − 0.3417i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  4. D. H. Lawrence · −0.3425 − 0.3227i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  5. Cale Young Rice · −0.3176 − 0.3481i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content