Poem fractal

Rosa de Fuego

by Antonio Machado

26 July 1875 to 22 February 1939 (~64)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Aprende a dudar y acabarás dudando de tu propia duda. De este modo paradójico aprenderás a creer.”

Treating doubt as a disciplined route towards a more thoughtful faith · Juan de Mairena, prose aphorism

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. John Wesley Holloway · 0.9506 − 0.4130i · 0.080 away · Compare side by side
  2. Manuel Machado · 1.0262 − 0.5563i · 0.096 away · Compare side by side
  3. S.E.K. Mqhayi · 0.8950 − 0.4155i · 0.097 away · Compare side by side
  4. Gabriele D'Annunzio · 1.0343 − 0.5559i · 0.102 away · Compare side by side
  5. Federico García Lorca · 0.9830 − 0.3831i · 0.113 away · Compare side by side
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