Poem fractal

Supremacy

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

22 December 1869 to 6 April 1935 (~66)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“To be ambitious of becoming a great man is the first step towards becoming a little man.”

A caution against confusing genuine achievement with the pursuit of status · Prose remark, commonly attributed

More remarks (1)

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. William Lisle Bowles · −0.2234 − 0.0164i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  2. Helen Hunt Jackson · −0.2108 − 0.0345i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  3. Jean Ingelow · −0.2023 − 0.0164i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  4. Hilaire Belloc · −0.2274 − 0.0311i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  5. John Scott · −0.2093 + 0.0072i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
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