Poem fractal

Magic

by George William Russell

10 April 1867 to 17 July 1935 (~68)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The greatest of all arts is the art of living.”

Treats everyday existence as a creative and moral discipline · Essay / prose writing

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. Robert Nichols · −0.3942 + 0.0757i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  2. William Wordsworth · −0.3950 + 0.0781i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  3. Patrick Reginald Chalmers · −0.3751 + 0.1000i · 0.022 away · Compare side by side
  4. John Farmer · −0.4144 + 0.0813i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Claude McKay · −0.4148 + 0.0893i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
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