Poem fractal

Even So

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

12 May 1828 to 9 April 1882 (~54)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The purpose of art is not to copy nature, but to create a beautiful equivalent.”

Distinguishing artistic creation from simple imitation · Artistic statement, as commonly attributed

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. Edna St. Vincent Millay · −0.0825 − 0.9198i · 0.007 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · −0.1136 − 0.9205i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  3. Arthur Davison Ficke · −0.0659 − 0.9388i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Stanley Braithwaite · −0.1165 − 0.9099i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.1193 − 0.9440i · 0.037 away · Compare side by side
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