Poem fractal

Time

by Sir Thomas More

7 February 1478 to 6 July 1535 (~57)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I die the King's good servant, and God's first.”

Expressing loyalty to conscience and faith above worldly authority · Final words, as recorded in contemporary accounts

More remarks (13)

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. Ada Cambridge · −0.0569 + 0.1489i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  2. Phineas Fletcher · −0.0736 + 0.1599i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. Philip Bourke Marston · −0.0559 + 0.1618i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  4. Philip Bourke Marston · −0.0742 + 0.1662i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
  5. John Oldham · −0.0660 + 0.1165i · 0.025 away · Compare side by side
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