Poem fractal

Chanson Sans Paroles

by Ernest Dowson

2 August 1867 to 23 February 1900 (~33)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“He was a master of both prose and verse... his prose better than his verse, as mine is.”

Dowson comparing himself with Poe and reiterating his preference for his own prose · Conversation with Frank Harris, as recalled by Harris

More remarks (40)

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. Emily Dickinson · 0.1026 − 1.1867i · 0.047 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · 0.0830 − 1.1151i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · 0.1136 − 1.1411i · 0.055 away · Compare side by side
  4. Robert Herrick · 0.0491 − 1.2185i · 0.058 away · Compare side by side
  5. Alfred Lord Tennyson · −0.0064 − 1.1766i · 0.070 away · Compare side by side
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