Poem fractal

A Young Fir-Wood

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

12 May 1828 to 9 April 1882 (~54)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“A work of art is beautiful when it expresses the deepest truth of the human soul.”

Linking aesthetic beauty with inner truth · Prose 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. D. H. Lawrence · −0.6715 − 0.3879i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  2. Christina Rossetti · −0.6630 − 0.3895i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. Howard Phillips Lovecraft · −0.6987 − 0.3934i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  4. WIlliam Collins · −0.6836 − 0.3587i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  5. Sarah Doudney · −0.6867 − 0.4139i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content