Poem fractal

On His Poems

by Walter Savage Landor

30 January 1775 to 17 September 1864 (~89)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows because our sun is setting.”

A sharp image of mediocrity inflated by the dimming light of an age · Imaginary Conversations

More remarks (112)

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. Edgar Lee Masters · −0.1799 + 1.0981i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  2. Robert Browning · −0.2416 + 1.0696i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  3. Amelia Alderson Opie · −0.1784 + 1.1073i · 0.038 away · Compare side by side
  4. Robinson Jeffers · −0.2320 + 1.1200i · 0.040 away · Compare side by side
  5. Matthew Arnold · −0.2253 + 1.0434i · 0.046 away · Compare side by side
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