Poem fractal

Golden Glories

by Christina Rossetti

5 December 1830 to 29 December 1894 (~64)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I have not yet filled up your rhymes, but still hope to do so; only I will not delay writing till the inspiration comes.”

A practical view of inspiration from a young poet already wary of waiting for it · Letter to William Michael Rossetti, 19 September 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. Alice Corbin · −0.6745 + 0.2417i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · −0.6937 + 0.2337i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  3. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. · −0.6752 + 0.2712i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  4. Patrick Reginald Chalmers · −0.6503 + 0.2660i · 0.043 away · Compare side by side
  5. Stephen Crane · −0.6617 + 0.1827i · 0.058 away · Compare side by side
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