Poem fractal

Faith

by Sir Lewis Morris

23 January 1833 to 12 November 1907 (~74)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“But on whichever side a writer may range himself, it is clear that he now does so deliberately and of set purpose.”

Emphasising conscious artistic choice in poetic technique · Essay, Some Thoughts on Modern Poetry (1891)

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. Emily Dickinson · −0.4854 − 0.3616i · 0.007 away · Compare side by side
  2. Emily Dickinson · −0.4740 − 0.3492i · 0.010 away · Compare side by side
  3. Richard · −0.4911 − 0.3654i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  4. Edward Coote Pinkney · −0.4935 − 0.3582i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  5. Samuel Taylor Coleridge · −0.4687 − 0.3713i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
—
—
0:00
0:00
Track 1
Skip to main content