Poem fractal

Solitude

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

5 November 1850 to 30 October 1919 (~69)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The New Thought is not a religion of Sundays, but of every day.”

Arguing that beliefs matter only when they shape everyday conduct · Essay, Concentration

More remarks (277)

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. Sara Teasdale · 0.4621 − 0.7808i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  2. Ralph Waldo Emerson · 0.4630 − 0.7790i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  3. A.E.Housman · 0.4609 − 0.7606i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  4. Lizette Woodworth Reese · 0.4360 − 0.7946i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  5. Sir Thomas Wyatt · 0.4346 − 0.7987i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content