Poem fractal

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

by William Wordsworth

7 April 1770 to 23 April 1850 (~80)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I yield to none in love for my art. I, therefore, labour at it with reverence, affection, and industry.”

Presenting poetic craft as disciplined labour grounded in devotion to art · Conversation, recorded by Christopher Wordsworth

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. Charlotte Smith · −0.1083 + 0.5734i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. Alfred Austin · −0.1257 + 0.5476i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  3. Oscar Wilde · −0.1075 + 0.5427i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  4. Rudyard Kipling · −0.0985 + 0.5931i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Ella Wheeler Wilcox · −0.1270 + 0.5944i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
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