Poem fractal

Rozłączenie

by Juliusz Słowacki

4 September 1809 to 3 April 1849 (~40)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The project, conceived long ago and several times rejected as too frightening an undertaking, has finally come to pass.”

Original: Projekt ten, od dawna zrobiony i kilka razy odrzucony ode mnie jako nadto straszne przedsięwzięcie, przyszedł na koniec do skutku. — A characteristic mixture of apprehension and determination before his journey east. · Letter to his mother, 24 August 1836 (Polish)

More remarks (29)

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. Hart Crane · −0.1427 − 0.1837i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  2. Ezra Pound · −0.1358 − 0.2050i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  3. Celia Thaxter · −0.1486 − 0.1624i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  4. Ralph Waldo Emerson · −0.1219 − 0.1594i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  5. Sir Walter Raleigh · −0.1193 − 0.1605i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
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