Poem fractal

Brother and Sister

by D. H. Lawrence

11 September 1885 to 2 March 1930 (~45)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The individual soul is not a fixed thing, but a flowing, changing thing.”

Emphasising the fluidity and continuing transformation of personal identity · Essay on psychology and consciousness

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. William Butler Yeats · −0.4617 + 0.5312i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  2. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.4750 + 0.5749i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  3. Amy Lowell · −0.4795 + 0.5714i · 0.033 away · Compare side by side
  4. D. H. Lawrence · −0.4816 + 0.5230i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Browning · −0.4236 + 0.5765i · 0.043 away · Compare side by side
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