Poem fractal

Mirage

by Christina Rossetti

5 December 1830 to 29 December 1894 (~64)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I hope some day to see the same and a wider field traversed by some friend of older standing and consequently of far warmer affection towards his hero; who, whatever he was or was not, was lovable.”

Her judgement of Gabriel ultimately returns from reputation to affection · Letter to William Michael Rossetti, 7 December 1882

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. Robert Burns · −0.0251 − 0.4006i · 0.007 away · Compare side by side
  2. D. H. Lawrence · −0.0304 − 0.4042i · 0.008 away · Compare side by side
  3. Manmohan Ghose · −0.0134 − 0.4176i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Boyle O'Reilly · −0.0151 − 0.3810i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  5. Richard · 0.0013 − 0.4289i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
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