Poem fractal

Operation

by William Ernest Henley

23 August 1849 to 11 July 1903 (~54)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“All his life long he was addicted to attitude; all his life long he was a poseur of the purest water.”

Observing the persistent theatricality of Hugo's public personality · Essay, Hugo

More remarks (51)

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. Robert Louis Stevenson · 0.3318 − 0.6758i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  2. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 0.3205 − 0.6982i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. Christina Rossetti · 0.2907 − 0.6899i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
  4. Robert Louis Stevenson · 0.2904 − 0.6936i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  5. Arthur Symons · 0.2880 − 0.6873i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
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