Poem fractal

Winter

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

12 May 1828 to 9 April 1882 (~54)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The artist’s function is to create beauty, and to leave the interpretation of it to others.”

Emphasising artistic creation over explanatory commentary · 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. A. A. Milne · −0.5762 + 0.3424i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  2. Wilfred Owen · −0.5607 + 0.3179i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  3. Dylan Thomas · −0.5681 + 0.3586i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  4. Wilfred Owen · −0.5484 + 0.3171i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  5. D. H. Lawrence · −0.5554 + 0.3047i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
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