Poem fractal

The Lords of Land and Money

by Gerald Massey

29 May 1828 to 29 October 1907 (~79)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“They must find it hard to take Truth for authority who have so long mistaken Authority for Truth.”

A sharp defence of independent judgement over inherited dogma · Lecture (A Retort, c. 1900)

More remarks (3)

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. Now
    Violet Fane · −0.4038 − 0.0860i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  2. James Whitcomb Riley · −0.3814 − 0.0937i · 0.012 away · Compare side by side
  3. Thomas Hardy · −0.4055 − 0.0790i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  4. Robert Herrick · −0.3732 − 0.0916i · 0.020 away · Compare side by side
  5. Aubrey Thomas de Vere · −0.3904 − 0.1183i · 0.030 away · Compare side by side
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