Poem fractal

Love (III)

by George Herbert

3 April 1593 to 1 March 1633 (~40)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The eyes have one language everywhere.”

Emphasising the universal expressive power of human feeling · Jacula Prudentum (prose aphorisms)

More remarks (4)

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. Mary Reynolds Aldis · 0.4868 − 0.2248i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  2. Paul Verlaine · 0.4215 − 0.2012i · 0.045 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edgar A. Guest · 0.4365 − 0.2748i · 0.054 away · Compare side by side
  4. Richard Crashaw · 0.4169 − 0.2604i · 0.055 away · Compare side by side
  5. Rose Milligan · 0.4052 − 0.2101i · 0.056 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content