Poem fractal

Dream-Confused

by D. H. Lawrence

11 September 1885 to 2 March 1930 (~45)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The deepest self is way down, and the conscious self is an obstinate monkey.”

A vivid contrast between instinctive being and the argumentative conscious mind · Critical study, Studies in Classic American Literature

More remarks (51)

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. Nora Hopper Chesson · −0.1193 − 0.9440i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · −0.1136 − 0.9205i · 0.032 away · Compare side by side
  3. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.1368 − 0.9002i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Stanley Braithwaite · −0.1165 − 0.9099i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
  5. Emily Dickinson · −0.1246 − 0.9761i · 0.045 away · Compare side by side
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