Poem fractal

Twilight Calm

by Christina Rossetti

5 December 1830 to 29 December 1894 (~64)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Still justice must take precedence of generosity.”

A concise statement of principle placing fairness before sentiment · Letter to William Michael Rossetti, August 1849

More remarks (60)

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. Richard Aldington · −0.4531 − 0.3777i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge · −0.4687 − 0.3713i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. Madison Julius Cawein · −0.4598 − 0.3886i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  4. Dylan Thomas · −0.4265 − 0.3783i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  5. Sir Lewis Morris · −0.4786 − 0.3585i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
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