Poem fractal

Life

by James Clarence Mangan

1 May 1803 to 20 June 1849 (~46)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Life is a game which perversely varies its character according to the age at which we play it: in youth, when much may be lost, it is a game of chance; in manhood, when little remains to be won, it is a game of skill.”

Contrasting youthful risk with the calculated choices of maturity · Essay, A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop 36

More remarks (39)

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. Paul Laurence Dunbar · −0.3464 + 0.2433i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  2. Charles Bertram Johnson · −0.3246 + 0.2282i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. Philip Bourke Marston · −0.3224 + 0.2484i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.3664 + 0.2369i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Blake · −0.3545 + 0.2154i · 0.029 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content