Poem fractal

Seven Seals

by D. H. Lawrence

11 September 1885 to 2 March 1930 (~45)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.”

Separating the meaning of a work from the intentions or opinions of its creator · Critical study, Studies in Classic American Literature

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 Shakespeare · 0.3597 + 0.2635i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  2. Wallace Stevens · 0.3483 + 0.2732i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 0.3207 + 0.2108i · 0.042 away · Compare side by side
  4. George Peele · 0.3185 + 0.2777i · 0.051 away · Compare side by side
  5. Sir Philip Sidney · 0.3488 + 0.3059i · 0.067 away · Compare side by side
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